Unusual decorative capitals from embroidery work in a German church. Upper case has a diamond-shaped frame around each letter; lower case is just the letters without the diamond frame; and the ampersand gives just the diamond frame so you can use a different colour from the letter.

Our eye is able to join missing parts of worn letters back into undisturbed shapes. We tend to see things better than they really are. Thanks to this ability we ignore faults of those close to us as we can’t accept the fact that every once in a while we convene with an impaired entity. Typography is merely a man’s invention, hence imperfection and transience, albeit overlooked, are its key features. This typeface is based on worn-out letterings on tombstones in the St. Croce basilica in Florence. For hundreds of years, microscopic particles of marble are being taken away on the soles of visitors: the embossed figures become fossilised white clouds, fragments of inscriptions are nearing the limits of legibility. First missing are thin joins and serifs, then the main strokes finally slowly diminish into nothingness over time. Unlike an archaeologist, for whom even completely featureless stele is valuable, the typographer must capture the proper moment of wear, when the type is not too “new” but also not too much decimated. Such typeface is usable for catalogue jackets, invitations and posters. Calligraphy is a natural human trait. To write is to create characters of reasonable beauty and content, according to the nature of the writer. A natural characteristic of architecture is to create an aesthetic message very similar to the alphabet. A doric column, the gabled roof, the circle of the well plan: these are the basic shapes from which all text typeface is derived.

Authentic rendering of the original font called Vanden Houten from the Keystone Foundry in Phaladelphia. Very popular among job printers of the early twentieth century.

Rockner is a family of fraktur typefaces designed by the calligrapher/designer Julius de Goede. Like all Blackletter styles, fraktur evolved out of Northern Europe's medieval manuscript tradition. Fraktur was the most used Blackletter variety between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. Unlike many similar fraktur font families, Rockner is available in three weights: Regular, Medium, and Bold. This flexibility allows for richer design possibilities. The OT fonts contain the many alternate characters, such as the long s and historical ligatures, which are often necessary for the setting of historical documents.

Marisco is Portuguese for shellfish. The font arose from the forms of classic tattoo types, especially those of mid-twentieth-century sailors, but it also has something of a nineteenth-century poster type flavor to it. Its main application is display type and poster design.

MYTHICA is a slightly condensed roman with spur serifs, derived from incised lettering on early twentieth century memorial stones and monuments. The typeface is available in 3 weights each with a complimentary italic.

Moho is a broad family of types inspired by the burgeoning modernism of the early twentieth century. Moho introduces an unconventional style in the form of his glyphs which aims to impregnate the text compounds thus a distinctive aesthetic sobriety and elegance while creating a flow of practical reading. The Moho family consists of a wide range of various weights. Thought for innovative text composition, Moho covers all shades of Medium, Regular, Light, ExtraLight to delicate Thin. Moho has a square shape letter style, provided with a competent OpenType programming for Moho OT family and basic functions for Moho Std family. Among the family characteristics OT has features such as small caps for letters and numbers, stylistics alternates, swash letters where "t" is extend over others, giving the typeface that particular style ideal for headlines, ligatures for pairs and triplets of letters, fractions and ordinals. In addition, each comes with its weight set italics. Moho has a character set to compose texts in European languages ​​of east and west with over 600 glyphs. Moho is a letter in resonance for general topics like sports, art. technology trends, fashion, tourism and transport. There exist two groups of Moho Family OT = Full OpenType Features and full set of glyphs Std= Basic OpenType Features and less glyphs

As a unique example of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Victorian type, Zinc Italian emits a strikingly beautiful and twinkling luminescence. Oversized initial caps, each containing intricate swirls and curlycues, vibrate stunningly alongside a variety of amusing lowercase letters. Also known as Zinco, this typeface is generously equipped with a charming set of alternate characters including capital figures and some easier-to-decipher lowercase letters. Zinc Italian with Alternates is also available in the OpenType Std format. Some new features including discretionary ligatures and expanded standard ligatures have been added to this OpenType version. Advanced features currently work in Adobe Creative Suite InDesign, Creative Suite Illustrator, and Quark XPress 7. Check for OpenType advanced feature support in other applications as it gradually becomes available with upgrades.

Here’s a collection of border elements taken from the pages of nineteenth and early twentieth century type specimen books of various American foundries. Download the PDF provided for each font for simple guides to constructing various borders. All characters have identical widths, so use spaces between left and right-side elements. For best results, set solid (no extra leading) and use flush left, flush right or center justification to assure proper alignment.

This early 1900s type is from the German foundry of Schelter & Gieseke, and is typical of early twentieth century design. As usual, we have added all the modern necessities, such as monetary signs for the major commercial countries.

Curwen Sans is a monoline sans-serif dating from the early twentieth century. Though contemporary with Johnston’s Underground and Gill Sans, and emerging from the same artistic milieu, Curwen Sans was created solely for in-house use at the Curwen Press in London so never achieved a wide audience or recognition. The original face was cut only in a Medium weight, but the new digital family consists of four weights, each with an optically corrected Oblique, and all containing a full complement of Latin Extended-A characters. K-Type Curwen Sans comprises three packages: • Basic Family (Regular, Oblique, Bold, and Bold Oblique) • Light (Light and Light Oblique) • Medium (Medium and Medium Oblique)

Inspired by the large American wood type of the Wild West, Richard Yeend created Italienne Std in 2002. Italienne Std is both very condensed and very decorative. It sports heavy, band like serifs, reminiscent of other italienne-style fonts, like Westside. Italienne-style fonts rose in popularity during the early 19th Century, when designers were first beginning to experiment with extreme contrast within letterforms, and across lines of text. Interestingly enough, letterforms with similar designs were just as common during the 1970s as during the 1870s, so you may use Italienne Std for applications ranging from country music concerts to disco parties. Italienne Std is part of the Take Type 5 collection from Liinotype GmbH."

It was the original work of fifteenth century designer Nicolas Jenson that formed the basis for this roman serif style developed by Ernst Detterer in 1923. Similar in spirit to other early twentieth century revivals such as Centaur, Cloister Old Style, and Italian Old Style, Nicolas Jenson is distinguished by its pristine and delicate nature. A gifted young apprentice to Detterer, Robert Hunter Middleton, greatly expanded the family. And by 1929, bold, italic, and open were part of the Ludlow Foundry’s beautiful Nicolas Jenson Series. It was reintroduced under a new name, Eusebius, in 1941. This digital version includes a new medium and extrabold weight with intermediate small caps and swash alternates throughout the family. There is also a regular expert version with a variety of currency symbols plus a regular petite caps (regular x-height small caps) and old style figures version. Nicolas Jenson is now available in the OpenType Std format. Small caps, old style figures, and swash alternates have all been combined into one style for ease of use. You will also find an additional regular petite caps version included with the regular style. Some new characters have been added as stylistic alternates and historical forms. These advanced features work in current versions of Adobe Creative Suite InDesign, Creative Suite Illustrator, and Quark XPress. Check for OpenType advanced feature support in other applications as it gradually becomes available with upgrades.

Odeon is the kind of font you would have seen on theatre or concert posters around the turn of the twentieth century. It is based on Art Nouveau sign lettering and has a heavy, playful look that's hard to miss.

Sarcastic is a monoline display typeface. It draws influence from a visual language of mid-twentieth century consumerism: 1950s script typography and the rhythmic forms of interconnected neon lettering. Sarcastic is perfect for contemptuous quips, disparaging proclamations, and castigating commentary.

Prevya is a display family. Inspired by the metalwork of the early twentieth century. Have appropriate characteristics for ornamental titles. Is accompanied by a light version for featured texts and it has a shadow layer to combine in beautiful designs.

The Neubank family builds on the firm foundation of Bank Gothic, a twentieth-century classic designed by Morris Fuller Benton for ATF, and adds a fluid, dynamic lowercase that makes it right at home in the twenty-first century. This font contains the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Nomarch is a charming new Art Nouveau font based on samples of poster lettering from the beginning of the twentieth century. The relatively bold weighting of the characters makes Nomarch particularly good for use in large sizes for titles on posters and flyers.

A fitting complement to the ever-popular Saturday Morning Toast is this book weight, monoline version, popular in the early twentieth century. Both versions contain the complete Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

The square icons focus on maximizing the meaning by minimizing the symbols. Let your viewers understand your data without disorientation. Use a metaphorical icon library, designed for fast, intuitive human recognition.

The square icons focus on maximizing the meaning by minimizing the symbols. Let your viewers understand your data without disorientation. Use a metaphorical icon library, designed for fast, intuitive human recognition.

The square icons focus on maximizing the meaning by minimizing the symbols. Let your viewers understand your data without disorientation. Use a metaphorical icon library, designed for fast, intuitive human recognition.

The square icons focus on maximizing the meaning by minimizing the symbols. Let your viewers understand your data without disorientation. Use a metaphorical icon library, designed for fast, intuitive human recognition.

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.

Typefaces designated as Latins were popular during the last half of the nineteenth century. One of the styles that continued to be popular into the twentieth century is the bold condensed typeface Latin. Readily identifiable by its triangular serifs and sharp terminals on the strokes of some of the lowercase letters, Latin Condensed makes an interesting display type and its condensed proportions easily solve copyfitting problems.

Typefaces designated as Latins were popular during the last half of the nineteenth century. One of the styles that continued to be popular into the twentieth century is the bold condensed typeface Latin. Readily identifiable by its triangular serifs and sharp terminals on the strokes of some of the lowercase letters, Latin Condensed makes an interesting display type and its condensed proportions easily solve copyfitting problems.

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.

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.

Dutch Mediaeval Book ST is a special version of the popular Dutch Mediaeval Book text fonts, engineered specifically for science writing. It is equipped with SciType, a combination of additional characters and OpenType programming included in the fonts to help in typesetting science text. For more information about SciType, please consult the SciType FAQ available in the Gallery section of this page. The Dutch Mediæval design is the historically renowned one made in 1912 by S. H. de Roos. It stands out as one of the most classic Dutch text faces. This Book version comes in two weights and an italic, optimized for body copy use between 8 and 12 pt. Aside from the SciType additions, all the fonts contain OpenType features for ligatures, ordinals, automatic fractions, eight kinds of figures, and a few ornaments. For details about the functionality of Dutch Mediaeval Book ST, please consult its Access Chart PDF available in the Gallery section of this page.

Derived from the world famous Rennie Mackintosh Font, the Scotland St. version gives an outline form of the genius of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The "Scotland St." name comes from one of Mackintosh's most famous architectural works - the Scotland St. School in Glasgow, Scotland. This wonderful legacy of Mackintosh's genius can be visited daily FREE OF CHARGE, as it has been classed as a museum by Glasgow City Council.

Dutch Mediaeval Pro ST is a special version of the popular Dutch Mediaeval Pro family, engineered specifically for science writing. It is equipped with SciType, a combination of additional characters and OpenType programming included in the fonts to help in typesetting science text. For more information about SciType, please consult the SciType FAQ available in the Gallery section of this page. The Dutch Mediaeval design is the historically renown one made in 1912 by S. H. de Roos. It stands out as one of the most classic Dutch text faces. This digital version comes in two weights and their italic counterparts. Aside from the SciType additions, all the fonts contain OpenType features for small caps and caps-to-small-caps, ligatures, ordinals, automatic fractions, seven kinds of figures, and a few ornaments. For details about the functionality of Dutch Mediaeval Pro ST, please consult its Access Chart PDF available in the Gallery section of this page.

P22 ST.G Shrift is a font series based on the type designs of Stefan George with an italic version designed by Colin Kahn. Stefan George (1868-1933) was a German poet who led the revolt against realism in German literature. All of his works were privately published and the typefaces that were used reflected his neo-classic and anti-industrial (progessive) aesthetics; oftentimes consisting of his own hand lettering designs. The original font was cast in 1907 by a small foundry in Germany and was used primarily for the works of George as well as other books including a monumental edition of Dante's Divine Comedy. The ST.G Shrift Fonts contained in this set are derived from 3 known variations of the original roman typeface, St.G., found in various books published in Berlin in the early 20th century. ST.G Shrift One contains the most idiosyncratic characters, while ST.G Shrift Two uses more familiar characters as well as a redesign of characters including the t and the k to be more in keeping with modern san-serif designs. The OpenType version of the roman contains both one and two and expands on them by including central European characters, small caps, and small caps titling figures. The Small Caps titling figures are derived from the first version of the typeface. Below is a features list (accessible through the type palette in Adobe programs) and their functions: ST.G Shrift Opentype Features: Small Caps: Changes Lowercase to Small Caps Titling Figures: Changes Uppercase to Titling Caps, and Small Caps to Small Caps Titling Figures Contextual Alternates: Changes Character Set to match ST.G One and changes Small Caps to Titling Small Caps Ornaments: Changes < > and ? (greater, less and bullet) to ornaments ST.G Shrift Italic is an art nouveau version of the roman. The OpenType version includes central European characters, small caps, titling caps, titling small caps and ornaments.

Halfway between nineteenth century display wood letters and the American grotesk sans-serif of the early twentieth, we can find Ultramarina, a display font for use in large body headlines, which show its power of attraction to quality food, the country’s legume, and gentlemen with a mustache and apron.

Discovered within the pages of a turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century specimen book of the Società Nebiolo of Turin, Italy, was this little gem, which shows both antique and Art Nouveau influences. Both versions of this font include the complete Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.