font_foundry: Solotype

Penelope

Penelope font

This was originally brought out as a caps-only font, but later the foundry scrounged up a lowercase that wasn’t our idea of a very good match. So we cleaned up the caps and made...

Kitcat

Kitcat font

This was a favorite of the old time job printers;­ decorative but readable. The MacKellar foundry was the largest and most creative of the old foundries, and decorative fonts like this one came out...

Eastlake

Eastlake font

Eastlake was a popular furniture style of the period when the MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan foundry brought out this font. As with many types, we find it difficult to see the connection between the...

Five Star Final

Five Star Final font

Introduced by the American Type Founders Co. at the time of the Spanish American War and advertised as suitable for “War Scare Headlines”! Used by many papers for years after because the narrow type...

Ghost Show

Ghost Show font

Back in the days when we earned our living with a travelling magic show, we took the shaded font Lithotint, filled it in, modified some characters, and here is the result. In those days,...

Gilbey

Gilbey font

Although wood types are found throughout the world, most of the decorative one originated in the United States. This one would work well on theatrical playbills, and advertising for tourist railroads, wild west shows...

Hullabaloo

Hullabaloo font

We saw a few letters of this in a catalog, and liked it so well we drew it up and made it as a film font for photolettering. Due to a surplus of interesting...

Circlet

Circlet font

Like many of the Victorian decorative fonts, this one had caps only when Barnhart Bros. and Spindler brought it out. In 1990, we decided to draw a lowercase for it, making it more versatile....

Concave Extended

Concave Extended font

Many foundries had versions of Concave ‹ wide, narrow, extra condensed, some with lowercase, some without. A good general utility style for Victorian typography.

Benjamin

Benjamin font

Fonts without curved lines were quite popular in Victorian times. We drew this one back in the days of T-squares and triangles, and based it on a type that we felt could stand to...