font_designer: Dan Solo

Here’s a good old Victorian job printing font. Faithful to the original issued by Barnhart Bros. & Spindler about 1880. Nothing wildly decorative about it, yet it clearly looks old.

You may be familiar with a caps and small caps type called Cruickshank. In Germany the same face was called Eureka. We took the small caps, which are not so overblown as the caps,...

From an early 20th century sign painter’s copy book. We gave it a softer treatment than many of the faux-Asian faces have. We also added a lowercase, as is our wont.

This is based on a mid-Victorian Connor’s foundry font originally known as Manhattan. One of several old faces known in America as “French Clarendons”, in Europe as “Italians”, and, wait for it, in France...

Redrawn from an old wood type we picked up in London. The original manufacturer is unknown. We added the lowercase to increase is usefulness.

Our notes say this was originated at the Barnhart Bros. & Spindler foundry in Chicago, and named Cable. Perhaps so, but we didn’t find it in any of our BB&S catalogs. We made a...

The Bruce Foundry in New York gave this Italian Clarendon the catchy name of Ornamented No. 1529. The original had a top right white shadow which we eliminated. Additionally we improved the color of...

This is really Congo from Barnhart Bros. & Spindler, but we felt it would be improved if we smoothed out some of the curves slightly. Conjures up visions of Pacific Islands and other exotic...

We have a penchant for types that connect to form a ribbon or band. Here’s another one, and no amount of words will excuse it.