The StoryBook Font & Fairy Tale Font

Carl Shank • December 15, 2023

Introducing the StoryBook and Fairy Tale Fonts. I like reading old books with fanciful crafted title caps (called "versals" in the typographic world). They remind me of days gone by when a children's book, full of illustrations of well-know children's tales and Mother Goose stories, captured the attention of children and adults alike (See Illustration Below).  What happened to those old, fun-loving illustrations and typefaces of long ago? Many would say they have outlived their time and usefulness. I disagree and have set about designing two new typefaces, called StoryBook and FairyTale, which seek to get us back to these fantastic old books and illustrations.


Using a flowery old-fashioned border in the StoryBook Font, I have set capital letters against a backdrop of well-known nursery rhyme illustrations. These fanciful caps can be set as opening letters to a children's book or series of children's stories. I have attempted to find either public domain illustrations and then make outlines of the main characters using Adobe InDesign and Photoshop tools, or have purchased resources for fair use in such background designs.


In the Fairy Tale Font, which has specialized characters,  I have mostly utilized the fine work of others and adapted such work to scannable pieces from which I could create a suitable font. You will have to be the judge of the final product. I am very interested in your evaluations and comments.


There are three iterations of the StoryBook font — StorybookSerif, StoryBookSansSerif, and StoryBookBackgrounds. The Serif font version uses letters adapted from the open source Libre Baskerville font. The SansSerif version uses Sans Serif open source font. The Backgrounds version has no inset font in the background diagrams. It also has a page where the font diagrams have been transformed into outline versions, thus allowing the user to employ the background in a variety of ways. One such variation is to use an outline font placed over the backgrounds to give the user more "storybook" like appeal.


The StoryBook font is a collection of capitals along with some  illustrations that can be utilized in a children's book. The Fairy Tale Font are illustrative pieces that can be used in texts or displays. I have also included in the Fairy Tale Font additional explanatory pages of the origins and use of the font. Samples of the fonts, used in well-known nursery and children's rhymes throughout the ages, are below. If you are interested in using the fonts, contact CARE Typography at cshanktype@gmail.com, for securing them.





Successful Layout & Design

Font Restoration Mechanics

By Carl Shank • May 13, 2025
Font Restoration Mechanics. Let me begin by giving an example from the world of theology, my first love and profession. Many people, even many non-Christian people, know that we are saved “by faith.” But faith in what or who? Well, faith in God. But this is imprecise. It is faith in Jesus Christ the Bible tells us. But once again, this too can be mistaken as just an intellectual nod of the mind toward Jesus without a real life change or transformation. More detailed biblical discussion, with appropriate distinctions, must be made so that we don’t make “faith” a human, works-based activity we do to please God. Or some existential “experience” with no definable qualities. Digging even deeper, faith saves no one, though it is absolutely necessary for salvation. It is Jesus Christ who saves. Faith becomes an “instrument” of salvation. Theologians have been unpacking this salvation “by faith alone” for centuries. Books and “how-to” sermons have been written and preached and taught here. Do you see the tremendous amount of refinement that “faith” requires? Precise typography claims similar distinctions and refinements in letter development and typeface creation. CARE Typography has been able to restore older hand-drawn fonts from various sources to modern digital typefaces. One of those most prolific sources has been from Alphabets Old and New — For The Use of Craftsmen, With An Introductory Essay on ‘Art in the Alphabet’” by Lewis F. Day, London, 1910.There is a wealth of older fonts shown by Day, one of them being a Roman Forum font from an old Roman Forum engraving. It might be thought that to copy and paste the letters and import them into a font design program, like FontLab’s Fontographer, is simple and rather straight-forward. Not so. From a font designer’s work, the transfer from a screenshot of an old book to a clear and professional open type font (SEE my Blog on “Open Type Fonts” in “More About Fonts” March 9, 2021) takes care and lots of work. It is both tedious and time intensive. The details of such work are often overlooked. Here’s an inside look at such work.

Wide Is Beautiful

By Carl Shank • March 15, 2025
Wide Is Beautiful What makes a typeface beautiful? Aesthetically pleasing fonts or typefaces have differing qualities that make them suitable and beautiful in different contexts and uses. I have chosen six (6) wide or "extended" font faces to highlight the inherent beauty and usability of such type. The samples chosen range from well used Adobe fonts to a specialty antique wide font CARE Typography crafted from an old fashioned type book published by Frederick Nelson Phillips, Inc of New York back in 1945.
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