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BEAUTY IS IN the eye of the beholder. This often quoted line, sometimes attributed to Margaret Wolfe Hungerford in the 1878 novel Molly Brown, suggests that beauty is a subjective quality with differing opinions as to what is beautiful. What is often termed “ugly” is beautiful to someone else. Philosophically, many have grappled with whether beauty is subjective or objective. In the field of typography from a Christian point of view, differing typographic periods both reveal and test what is considered beautiful. 

We believe beauty in this world comes from the presence of God in creation and life. We are made by our Creator to be “sensory-rich,” and our typographic history unfolds this in stunning and diverse ways. As one writer has so eloquently said

“Holy Scripture calls us to inhabit an ordered world of creation and providence that is sensory rich, but we suffer what we may regard as spiritual sensory deprivation. And the more we discover the depth, scope and lush richness of the divinely ordered real world, the more we discover the impoverishment of the modern condition.” (Mark Garcia, Westminster Theological Seminary)

Typographical Beauty Through The Ages

Available at Lulu.com at their Bookstore

GO TO http://bit.ly/462rzBs


THE MOST PRINTED book in the world is the Bible.  Even before the press work of Gutenberg in the 1400s, handwritten manuscripts by dedicated religious monks brought the Word of God to written light. Centuries earlier than these dedicated transcribers of Scripture, ancient Hebrew and Greek writings began the journey of Bible typography.

William Skeen in his 1872 Early Typography celebrated what he called “The Art Sublime” referring to typography and its use for divine illumination —

“That all aright the men may know

To whom Typography we owe;

The men whose names immortal ring,

Whose gifts transcendent blessings bring,

Whose monuments in every land

By wisdom rear’d, heart-honor’d stand,

Inscribed in tongues of every clime —

“Inventors of the Art Sublime!”

This little book investigates the history of Bible typography, the “art sublime,” from ancient roots to modern examples. An Appendix of older typographic fonts, many of them hand written and digitized for modern use, is also offered.


Available from Lulu Press at

Lulu.com at their Bookstore

Go To http://bit.ly/462s1Qa


TYPOGRAPHY FOR TYPISTS. I admire and value what professional typists do, whether they be document processors, or administrative assistants or data crunchers. Theirs is an often underrated and overlooked job when talking about the actual type they use and how they use it.


As also a pastor and theologian, I have worked with a number of church secretaries and administrative assistants who produce regular newsletters along with massive amounts of correspondence. What I have noticed as a typographer is the lack of knowledge of basic typographic principles used in such materials. This has led to this little book on typography for typists.


My hope and desire is that this book is an encouragement to all those typists seeking to produce accurate and good-looking documents in today’s world.


This book can be purchased directly from Lulu.com at

https://bit.ly/4tN4hZP




CARE Typography is pleased to announce a new font — NabelDado. This typeface is a decorative, capital lettering font, available in both standard black-and-white as well as a colored face in SVG format.


This font is perfect for a large versal (opening letter) for historic or decorative purposes. The SVG font can be adapted with differing lettering. Contact cshanktype@gmail.com for more details.

CARE Typography Fonts

CARE Typography has crafted with the help of public domain materials and Lewis F. Day's Alphabets Old and New (London, 1910) a number of specialty fonts for sale to the public. Many of these fonts are uncials, or capital letters, suitable for invitations or chapter openings in books and other manuals.

Your first three choices are FREE to you. Ordering more than three selections are on a sliding scale of cost. An order form is attached. Payment via PayPal upfront. Enjoy!



Order Fonts

Font Revivals

These newly digitized fonts are from  C.A. Faust and Frederick Nelson Phillips. Charles Ayers Faust (1860–?) was an American calligrapher and typographic designer known primarily for his 1912 compendium Faust’s 75 New Alphabets, a richly illustrated manual of lettering techniques. Published in Chicago by the C. W. Braithewait Company.


Phillips Old Fashioned Type Book (New York, 1945) provides type styles that have not been seen or used for quite some time. CARE Typography has digitized many of these classic typefaces for your enjoyment and use. Contact us for ordering and prices.


The Crosses Two Typeface has been gathered and digitized from a number of sources. This font is FREE to use in any commercial or non-profit venue.


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About Me

Hi, I'm Carl Shank.

I'm a layout, font designer and consultant specializing in church and ministry work under the umbrella of Carl Shank Consulting, a church health and leadership mentoring service.

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Perhaps it is a special  logo or letterhead design or typeface that needs a facelift. Perhaps it is a wider ministry issue.


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Blog

Compositors & Type: Origin and Use of “Uppercase” and “Lowercase”

By Carl Shank • June 13, 2026
Compositors & Type: Origin and Use of “Uppercase” and “Lowercase” Carl Shank, CARE Typography Most everyone knows what “uppercase” and “lowercase” letters are. They refer, of course, to our “capital” letters and our “regular” small print. But not many know why or how they came to be known by such terminology. The answer is found in the history and development of typography and printing. “Case” here doesn’t refer to “circumstance” or “condition.” It refers to the wooden trays used to store metal letters, the top case for capital letters (“uppercase”) and the lower case for small letters. Each tray was divided into compartments to hold the type. The lower case also held the punctuation marks and other pieces of type, like “spacers.” The type case was a shallow wooden tray divided into compartments of various sizes. There were about thirty styles of type cases, and some of these were made in different sizes.[1] The most common, or standard, size was 32¼ by 16 inches, outside dimensions, and ⅛ inches deep, inside. One of three traditional plans or schemes for such type cases involved (1) all characters in one case; (2) capitals, small capitals and a few other characters in one case; or (3) the small letters, figures, points, spaces and quads in another case. The two latter cases formed a pair and would nearly always be used together.(See Images) Hand compositors (or “swifts”) would take individual letters, spaces and punctuation marks or other characters from the type case and place them in what was called a composing “stick” in such a manner that when the type characters are properly assembled, they form words, sentences and paragraphs. The work of the press room compositor was divided into two fundamental operations — the “setting” of type and the “unsetting” of type. The former was called composition and the latter, distribution. A visual example of such typesetting can be seen in some of the episodes of The Waltons, an American historical dramatelevision series about a family in rural western Virginia in the Appalachian/Blue Ridge mountains chain, during the economic hardships and mass unemployment of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the subsequent United State home front during World War II in the 1940s. The series aired from 1972 to 1981. John-Boy, a leading character of the series, opened a print shop in a shed by the family home with an old-fashioned mechanical printer that required setting cold metal type from a type case. His brother was the compositor while John-Boy ran the printing machine.

Vanity Type

By Carl Shank • June 6, 2026
Reading through an old volume of Frederick Nelson Phillips, Inc, Type Faces:With Which We 'Prove It With Proofs' in Typography for Advertisements (New York, 1924), I came across some type that falls outside of the standard typography models, called "vanity type." The term “vanity typography” is not a formal category in typographic history like Old Style, Transitional, Modern, or Sans Serif. Designers typically use the phrase informally to describe typography that draws attention primarily to itself rather than serving the text or reader. Vanity typography occurs when type is used as a display of the designer's skill, fashion, or personal taste rather than to improve communication. Readability is sometimes sacrificed for self-expression and artistic flair. Such type styles use excessive ornamentation, decorative letterforms, overuse of effects like shadows, outlines, gradients and distortions, unusual spacing, and generally typography used to impress rather than inform. Notice in the sample by Phillips, the different "A's," "F's,", "G's," "H's," "L's," "M's," "S's," T's" and "W's." This is not calligraphy lettering, but rather type that could have been used for verses or opening letters to paragraphs or stories.

Puritan Typography

By Carl Shank • May 15, 2026
Puritan Typography Theology Informing Type “Creational realities have not spilled out randomly without purpose; rather, they reflect the wisdom, design, and intention of the good God who made them. It’s our job, then, to observe and learn. . . . And indeed, long before [Jonathan] Edwards began to keep his notebook of earthly pointers to heavenly truths, the seventeenth-century English Puritans were writing lengthy volumes organized around exactly this sort of principle.”[1] “The Puritans were a group of ministers and laypeople within the Church of England who sought to promote Reformed and experiential piety while striving to purify the national church from Roman Catholic influences in doctrine and worship, beginning during the Elizabethan era and continuing as a powerful force until the early eighteenth century. More broadly defined, the Puritan movement included those who were firmly within the Reformed and experiential tradition that flourished not only in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, but also well into the eighteenth century north of Hadrian’s Wall (among the Scottish Presbyterians), across the North Sea (among the Dutch Further Reformation divines), and across the Atlantic Ocean (among the New England Puritans and eighteenth-century evangelicals).” [2] Puritan typography flows from Puritan theology. The English Puritans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries inherited a typographic world shaped by the late Renaissance, the Reformation, and early modern printing. Their type styles were not merely aesthetic choices. Rather, they reflected theology, scholarship, readability, economy, and cultural identity.