How it works
A Victorian gothic font is not one typeface. It is a mood: ornamented capitals, fat poster serifs, blackletter and a flowing pen script, set like a card from the 1800s. This page opens on Ewert in black ink on old paper, inside a frame.
Read the full guide
Seven faces, and how old each really is
Ewert is ornamented wood type. Abril Fatface follows the fat poster letters of nineteenth-century Britain and France, and Diplomata SC redraws an old metal type. UnifrakturMaguntia goes back to a Fraktur of 1901. Playfair Display follows late 1700s book type. Pinyon Script is a round hand. Emilys Candy is a recent curly face, here for the mood.
For a southern gothic font, wear it down
Set Look to Rough print and the ink breaks up like old poster paper. Abril Fatface in olive and Playfair Display in black take it best. The last four ready-made titles are written for that look.
- Ewert and Diplomata SC have no small letters of their own: Ewert repeats its capitals and Diplomata SC draws small capitals.
- Gold ink on old paper is too faint to read. Put gold on night blue or black.
Questions and answers
What makes a font look Victorian?
Display type boomed in the 1800s. Fat faces appeared in London around 1805 to 1810, and wood type made large poster letters cheap. The Victorian era itself ran from 1837 to 1901. Ornament, heavy contrast and mixed styles on one sheet mark its printing.
Does gothic mean blackletter here?
Not only. Gothic here is the mood of the Gothic novel: dark, old and ornate. Printers also use the word for blackletter, and UnifrakturMaguntia is the blackletter of this victorian font generator. In type catalogs gothic can even mean a plain sans serif.
Can this victorian gothic font generator make a whole poster?
It draws one block of lettering, up to four lines and 120 characters, in one face at a time. Period posters mixed several faces, so save a picture for each line and stack them in a document.