One of our most interesting new projects is the Dudley font. It's another
elaborately flourished calligraphic font based on lettering from Robert Dudley's 1661 map of
America. The Dudley font is a major design undertaking because the capital letters are so
fantastical, and because it includes three different sets of uppercase letters, as well as unique
lowercase letters.
Atkinson Egyptian is almost ready for release. It isn't desperately exciting. It's a straightforward
heavy weight, sans serif title font, based on lettering by Frank Atkinson. It looks nice,
and it's practical, but it isn't anything remarkable. But sometimes we need fonts like
this. We've actually developed this particular font as a basis for some other specialized
font variations, because it's heavy weight and clean lines are easy to add certain specialized
decorations to.
We recently found samples of a calligraphic variant of the classic 17th
century Engrossing style. It's the basis of our forthcoming Engrossing Text font.
Fafnir initials is another new font we're working on. It's going to be
part of our forthcoming Germanic/Norse fonts and art collection.
We're working on two new collections of font and art based on
the work of two of the best illustrators of the early 20th century, Charled Folkard and
Willy Pogany. These artists both worked in a variety of styles and formats,
following the arts and crafts tradition of completely designing many of their books
from hand lettering titles to drawing marginalia to beautiful full-color illustrations.
Pogany is probably the better known of the two artists, primarily
because of his illustrations for the 'flower fairy' series of books, however
his work included some remarkable books on a wide variety of themes, particularly
mythology and fantastic literature. Pogany's most remarkable work is probably
his illustrated edition of Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which
includes beautiful color plates, decorative borders, marginalia and fantastic
hand lettering. We've already designed several fonts based on Pogany's lettering (look for
Isfahan and Gjallarhorn), and in addition to a large selection of Pogany art our
new Pogany collection will include these fonts and also Mariner, a new font based on the
lettering in the decorative title page of that book.
Charles Folkard is a bit more obscure than Willy Pogany, but in many
ways he's even more interesting. His lettering style is even more destinctive and
his work shows a greater interest in graphic design and experimentation. Folkard's
master work is probably his illustrated edition of Ingoldsby's Jackdaw of Rheims, with
extensive hand lettering, humorous marginalia and full-color plates. Folkard
also illustrated and designed several fairy tale books, including Jolly Calle and
Witch's Hollow which both feature extensive decoration and lettering in
addition to color plates.
We've already done one font based on Folkard's lettering. It was
developed from a characteristic style which he used extensively for book titles and
covers. Our Folkard font has been one of our most popular and most recognizable
fonts. It recently appeared in the titles of the fantasy movie Lady of the Lake.
In addition to lots of art and borders, our new Folkard collection will feature two
new fonts based on lettering styles used in his edition of the Jackdaw of Rheims,
one a very traditional lettering style and the other a more fanciful decorative style.
The Pogany package will probably be available within the next few weeks. Look for the Folkard package in February. We're also working on some other interesting projects, including a collection of Persian miniatures to accompany our Arabian Nights collection