Four Old Playful Fancy Fonts

Carl Shank • January 20, 2025

Four Old Playful Fancy Fonts. CARE Typography is pleased in its historical search for antique inspired fonts to introduce digitized versions of Harper and Mikado, a Gutenberg  typeface and Lacrosse. Unlike their modern counterparts, these fonts are display only fanciful fonts of a bygone era in typography. However, they exude a rich history of font development that should not be forgotten in our search for the new, the sleek, the up-to-date in type. They have been developed from the rich typographic heritage of Phillips Old Fashioned Type Book published in 1945 by Frederick Nelson Phillips, Inc, in New York. This volume has caught my historic typographic eye for its plethora of ancient font styles and formulations.


The Harper446 font is especially playful, with its curly capitals, its specialized "Q" capital and, of course, its flavorful and playful small case lettering, with the raised c, e and o letters and the odd looking "g." This is obviously not a text font, but can uses in artful decorative work.


The Mikado231 font does not at all look like the variations of the typeface called "Mikado" in typography history. As that history notes, "Mikado was apparently inspired by Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera of the same name. The show opened in London in March of 1885 and in New York later that same year. According to Nicolete Gray in her classic book on ornamented typefaces, the English foundry of Sir Charles Reed and Son introduced a metal type called “Japanese” also in 1885. She characterized this typeface and other oriental based typefaces as superficial in their foreign influence. Nonetheless it appears that it was later copied by several of the American Wood-type companies. The 1906 Hamilton wood-type specimen catalog shows four versions of this design; one by Hamilton and three by acquired companies. The versions by Wells, and Morgans & Wilcox are called Mikado. The Hamilton and Page versions use model numbers 204 and 156 respectively. It is difficult to determine the specific dates when this particular wood-type was introduced, but the earliest wood-type catalog I could find showing Mikado is the 1888 Page catalog. Our sample “WINTER” is a 15 line unstamped type most similar to the Hamilton version. Incidentally, another English foundry, Miller and Richard introduced a metal typeface in 1887, also named Mikado. That typeface is totally different than the one presented here." (https://www.printmuseum.org/wood-type-mikado).


This Mikado adaptation has straight angular  E, F, G, K, T and even raised W, X, Y in the capitals. Note the falling stems of C, L, and  lower c, e, h, m and n. Again, this playful font can be used sparingly in advertisement copy and flavorful playbills.


The Gutenberg700 font is again from the Phillips book samples. Note the dotted C, U, V, small g and zero. The ampersand is also interesting. Curly serifs are used in A, J, L, S. The numerals are classic old school numerals. This Gutenberg rendering is unlike any classic Gutenberg typeface that has been presented.


The LacrossePhillips font has a cute left hanging serif on the capitals. It is a bold faced font, both in the upper and lower case. It is a full font offering upper and lower case lettering, numerals and other marks.


These fonts are available from CARE Typography at care typography.com at NO COST. They are free to purchase and use.

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Art Nouveau Typography

By Carl Shank • September 6, 2025
Art Nouveau fonts grew out of the late 19th-century Art Nouveau movement (c. 1890–1910), which sought to break away from academic, historicist styles and create a new art for the modern age. The style flourished across Europe and America in architecture, furniture, illustration, and typography. In lettering, Art Nouveau embraced organic forms, flowing curves, floral motifs, and asymmetry, reflecting the movement’s fascination with natural growth and hand-drawn ornament. Art Nouveau took its name from the Maison de l'Art Nouveau, a Parisian gallery that exhibited the works of artists and designers who were associated with the movement. The style was characterized by flowing, curvilinear forms inspired by natural shapes and motifs such as flowers, vines, and insects. It also incorporated elements from other artistic traditions, such as Japanese art and the Arts and Crafts movement. Art Nouveau was particularly popular in Europe, where it influenced a wide range of artistic disciplines, including architecture, interior design, furniture, jewelry, and graphic design. Some of the most notable Art Nouveau architects included Hector Guimard, Antoni Gaudí, and Victor Horta, while artists such as Alphonse Mucha, Aubrey Beardsley, and Gustav Klimt were celebrated for their decorative and ornamental works. Art Nouveau declined in popularity after World War I, as artists and designers began to embrace new, more modernist styles. However, its influence can still be seen in many aspects of contemporary design, and it remains an important and influential movement in the history of art and design. 

Ornamental Gothics

By Carl Shank • August 30, 2025
Gothics History. Gothic typefaces are a broad group of styles rooted in medieval calligraphy and evolved into distinct print types during and after the invention of movable type via Gutenberg in the 15th century. They are sometimes confusingly named. In Europe “Gothic” usually refers to blackletter (medieval scripts), while in the U.S. “Gothic” often refers to sans-serif typefaces since the 1830s. Gothic script is a broad term for the entire family of medieval European scripts that developed from Carolingian minuscule around the twelfth century. “Minuscules” are lower case letters as distinct from capital letters, or uncials. Type developed in the sixth through tenth centuries with modern lettering evolving from Carolingian scripts. The Emperor Charlemagne used these letters as an educational standard. These densely packed scripts featured tall, narrow letterforms, strong vertical emphasis, sharp, angular connections, a dramatic thick/thin contrast and minimal spacing between letters. Gothic-inspired fonts create immediate medieval impact and work beautifully for titles, logos, and short display text. They are used today in Fantasy Gaming, Historical Projects, Themed Entertainment (like the Renaissance Fair), Book Design, Certificates, Breweries and Distilleries. Jack Nolan, a professional graphics designer, has provided a fetching display of such faces in his "33 Medieval Fonts Perfect for ‘Ye Olde’ Designs in 2025."(1)
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