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Backhand Brush

BACKHAND BRUSH is my re-creation of a classic 19th-century style of hand lettering.

Barbecue

BARBECUE was inspired by the font BARB, illustrated in the great Dan X. Solo books from Dover. It’s in “100 Ornamental Alphabets” and in the “theme, topical” section of the “Solotype Catalog.”

Baronial Monograms

The BARONIAL MONOGRAMS fonts are designed to create unique blackletter style monograms. Optional decorative elements tie in the smaller, outside letters; see the Read Me file in the download.

The letterforms were inspired by the analog font “American Text” as reproduced in Dan X. Solo’s Gothic and Old English Fonts (Dover, 1984.) I’ve redrawn the font with only 90- and 45-degree angles, and reshaped a number of other letters completely to fit the monogram format. Could be used as a matching titling font; large and small caps only.

Barril

BARRIL is my digital interpretation of a “lost” analog font called Barrio. I started with a scan from a dry-transfer catalog (thanks, Jeff). I know it was produced originally by Neufville, but that’s all the information I have. Totally 70s!

For my own amusement, I made a second inline version called Barril Doble. Great for layering.

Baselina

Baselina is a stylish, squarish font that hugs the baseline, suggestive of Art Deco and neon signs. In four weights: Light, Regular, Bold and Extra Bold. Inspired by the hand-lettered titles of the Fleischer brothers’ animated film “Mr. Bug Goes to Town” (1941)

Bead Chain/Marquee

BEAD CHAIN was inspired by a book jacket of the 1920s or 30s that featured white pearls arranged to form handsome capitals. I’m using the stately forms of Gill Sans, although some letters had to be reshaped to fit the pearls better.

Then, after seeing Chicago again, I made MARQUEE, a companion negative font. Use them separately or layered together.

Bend It!

BEND IT is a my fourth and final take-off on the classic 60s flower font Daisyland*. The others are Calaveras, Heartland, and Peace. One of my font correspondents (Nancy, the soccer mom) suggested this and it was a nice diversion. Parodied on Something Awful as “Clipart Clutter…An excellent choice for the proud mom with more free time than things to say.”

Benighted

BENIGHTED is my stab at a blackletter font that has a loose, hand-lettered feel. Sort of an Old English Casual or Fraktur Frisky. I drew all the letters with a Sharpie marker (and I’m no calligrapher) and then autotraced them, arranging them along an uneven baseline.

Bensfolk

The BENSFOLK fonts were inspired by the work of the artist Ben Shahn. He was a political activist, a painter, and a calligrapher, among many talents.

One of the lettering styles Shahn used was derived from the work of amateur sign painters. As trained artists often react to the work of so-called naive or folk artists, he found their crude beauty to be “cacophonous and utterly unacceptable. Being so it is irresistibly interesting.”

Bensgothic

BENSGOTHIC was inspired by the work of the artist Ben Shahn. (See also Bensfolk.)

These two fonts (Regular and Ligatures) are designed to be used together to evoke Shahn’s hand-lettering. This style–which he applied to psalms, Christmas cards, posters, and many other items–suggests inscriptional capitals like those of Byzantine mosaics, the Bayeux tapestry, or medieval manuscripts.

Bifur

BIFUR is my digital interpretation of the classic analog Art Deco font of the same name.

Bifur was designed by A. M. Cassandre and released in 1929 by Deberny & Peignot of Paris. The font is remarkable for its visually exciting two-tone Art Deco look and dramatic simplification of letterforms.

Historically produced in 1- and 2-color versions, I’ve re-created Bifur as a set of six fonts which can be combined in layers to easily create high-resolution text graphics.

Bingo Dingo

BINGO DINGO is a dingbat font inspired by the classic Mexican board game, Lotería. Similar to bingo, with pictures instead of numbers, there’s a fascinating assortment of characters, animals, and other things which I’ve rendered in an engraving-like style. The optional box around the image can be typed with an additional keystroke. 54 images in all. I have not included the names in the designs; label them as you will in any language.

Blocked

BLOCKED is my reconstruction of a “lost” Letraset font. The original, called “Block Up,” was designed by Sally Ann Grover and was issued in 1974 by Letraset. Block Up is one of countless fonts that didn’t make the technological transition from transfer letters to digital. My digital version was constructed point by point, not autotraced, so it’s very clean. I’ve used all the available characters (except the 4) and rounded it out with more punctuation and international characters. I’m especially fond of my @.

Blockograms

BLOCKOGRAMS is a set of five fonts for easily creating unique 3-letter cube-shaped monograms. The animation above shows the combinations of white and black faces contained in the set of fonts.

Bloop

BLOOPER and BLOOP SCRIPT were created to have the look of letters formed by puddles of shiny liquid. The general form of each was inspired by a classic font. Blooper takes after Cooper Black (Oswald Cooper, 1921), Bloop Script after Brush Script * (Robert E. Smith, 1942).

Boston Line/Philadelphia Line

My BOSTON LINE fonts were inspired by Boston Line Type, developed in the 1830s by Samuel Gridley Howe (left) for use in raised-letter printing for the blind. The odd diamond-shaped a, d, and o and generous spacing give the inkless, embossed pages a strange beauty. A variety of books were eventually printed with this distinctive type, including a beautiful Bible of in 1842. Many blind people found Roman letters difficult to read and all such systems were eventually replaced by Braille. Howe’s legacy lives on in Boston’s Perkins School for the Blind, which he founded.

Bracelet Monograms

The BRACELET MONOGRAMS set of 8 fonts lets you create custom monograms or linking text, in oval or octagonal letters, with black and white backgrounds and a variety of decorative end pieces. Inspired by the font “Tableau” as reproduced in Dan X. Solo’s Special Effects and Topical Alphabets.

Brickletter

BRICKLETTER was inspired by Jeff Levine’s interlocking all-brick font “Off the Wall.” I took the brick idea that and added letters based on Max Kaufmann’s classic font Balloon. Each letter fits with the next to create a brick wall emblazoned with bold graffiti. The brackets and underscore can be used to create square ends and bricked space. Parodied on Something Awful as “Bricks of Failure…What could make a font read better than putting a bunch of bricks behind it? Absolutely nothing! It’s perfect!”

Bride of the Monster

The BRIDE OF THE MONSTER fonts were first inspired by the trailer of the classic film Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

Bruce Mikita

BRUCE MIKITA is my digital version of an analog font of the same name. It has a rustic, hand-crafted feel and suggests East Asian calligraphy. The highlight is a distinctive feature; I’ve also made an un-highlighted version, which Dan X. Solo identifies as “Lantern.”

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