font_foundry: Solotype

In one of our yearly type hunts, we came across the ancestor of this font, much wider and more decorative, with fine outside shading. Condition was poor so we did the obvious, cutting out...

This is a simplified Tuscan, free from excessive ruffles and flourishes. Types of this general design began to appear in profusion in the 1830, and continued as a popular form until the end of...

A surprisingly modern looking condensed sans serif issued by Mackellar, Smiths & Jordan foundry in 1887. Its narrow width makes it useful for long copy headlines. Designed by the freelance type cutter Charles Beeler...

Victorian fonts are a delight to use, but many don¹t have a lowercase. Today, that doesn¹t cut it, so where practicable, we design a harmonizing lowercase to extend the usefulness of the font.

The Fredrick Ullmer Co. in London acted as agent for many typefoundries, and this was one of their offerings. Some of the letters were rather outlandish, so we fearlessly decided to improve them. The...

This is a neat lightface font from the 1880s, issued by MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan of Philadelphia. Just a hint of Victorian design on a few letters. All in all a clean, easy to...

Many fonts have carried this name. Ours goes back to just before 1900 in France. This general style had considerable popularity among job printers all over Europe. We have even seen it used for...

An old wood type we picked up in London from the Fredrick Ullmer Company. It’s not marked, and we’ve never seen it in a catalog, so we don’t know who made it. We like...