Today, since we all use computers, those fonts are often digitized reproductions of the original faces used in monumental Greek and Roman carvings and can now be used for headings and script-looking documents and designs. More often than not, these typefaces come in all caps and small caps.

Here are 20 great examples of Inscriptional fonts. We hope you enjoy it!

Trajan Pro and Trajan Pro Bold, from the Adobe Type Foundry, can be used for display work in magazines, books, and billboards. It’s a pretty popular Roman typeface.

The Mantinia typeface includes raised caps and very distinctive ligatures. It was designed by Matthew Carter and was inspired by letterforms engraved by Andrea Mantagna, from the Italian Renaissance.

The Pontif typeface was based on the work of Luca Horfei, a Vatican scribe who designed the inscriptions for Pope Sixtus V in the sixteenth century. This typeface is owned by LetterPerfect and was designed by Garrett Boge in 1997.

Ceres is another Roman typeface whose name is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess. The great thing about the Ceres font is that it also comes in lowercase, unlike many Inscriptional fonts that are available only in all caps.

Arrus was first released in 1991 and was designed by Bitstream. This typeface draws inspiration from classic Inscriptional fonts and comes in all caps, small caps and lowercase formats.

Augustus is a free font inspired by Greek and Roman engravings. It comes in all caps only and is well suited for headings in books and magazines or even on the web.

The Capitalis Typoasis typeface was designed by Manfred Klein and available for free. It works very well for headings where a very legible all caps typeface is needed.

Roman Caps is a pretty popular (and free) stylish all caps and small caps typeface. It was designed by Steve Deffeyes.

Greek is a typeface designed by Pedro Muñoz Pastor. Being a very particular typeface it may not be suitable for all types of designs but it can sure be used for historical documents and brochures.

The Kartago typeface was inspired by the inscriptions in the Roman ruins in the city of Cartago in Tunisia. This typeface was created by Dino dos Santos from DSType.

Optimus Princeps is another great typeface designed by Manfred Klein. It’s a very legible all caps typeface that can be used in books or magazines and even on the web in some cases.

Caesar is not your typical Inscriptional Roman typeface. It features double-lined glyphs and is reminiscent of Rome and ancient Roman architecture.

Empiric Roman was designed by SDFonts. I particularly like the A and E characters. This is an all caps typeface that is well suited for headings and it also has a very strong Roman feel, especially because of the U and V characters, which are basically the same.

Rusticus STD, as the name may suggest, is an old-looking (but fun), typeface that is best used sparingly for headings and book or magazine designs. This typeface was designed by Denis Serikov.

Archeological Caps is a great typeface that is slightly grunge-looking. It features worn-edges and comes in all caps and small caps formats. Designed by Manfred Klein.

SPQR is a stylish all caps/small caps typeface also designed by Iconian Fonts. It may not be suitable for a lot of things, but used sparingly it can definitely make an impact.

The Cartesius typeface finds its roots in 16th and 17th century France. This typeface is very suitable for book and magazine design. It was created in 2006 by Bo Berndal and is published by T4.

Designed by Manfred Klein, the Monograms Toolbox typeface can be used for old-looking designs and headings. Very suitable for book covers and brochures.

Justinian is another friendly and fun typeface designed by Iconian Fonts. While it may not be suitable for any type of design, it can certainly be used for logo and brochure design. It has this hand-written feel to it.

Marathon is a strong typeface that features some rounded-ness and it also shares some similarities with hand-written fonts. I find it very friendly. It was designed by Dan Zadorozny of Iconian Fonts.

About The Author

Jon Phillips is a designer and Wordpress developer who also blogs for a specialist supplier of laser toner from various brands to the print industry throughout the United Kingdom.

Related:
5 Classic Sans-Serif Fonts

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One of my favorite all-time designers is of course Chip Kidd and I love the work he’s done over his career. If you’ve read Kidd’s books you’ll geek out reading the troubles and tribulations he’s been through designing his covers.

A book cover has to stand out at a bookstore because of the competition on the shelves. I chose books based on a combination of cleverness, aesthetics and originality. Here are Debra’s 10 and 47 of my own handpicked favorites separated into Conceptual, Typographical, Illustrative and Miscellaneous categories.

DEBRA’S PICKS

She tried to cover a range of styles in her post to show the variety of great book covers that people have done.

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

Secret Lives of Great Artist by Elizabeth Lunday

Against Happiness by Eric G. Wilson

Hotheads by Steven Pinker

The Craftsman by Richard Sennett

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon

Oil by Matthew Yeomans

Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me edited by Ben Karlin

The Complete Persepolis by Marjane SatrapiXX

Conceptual

You’ll notice a simple metaphor is all it takes to make a great conceptual book cover. The type of book doesn’t matter much either as you’ll see novels, trade-books and non-fiction.

Lovesick by Alex Wellen

The Best of Brochure Design 9 by Jason Godfrey

A Happy Marriage by Rafael Yglesias

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs

The Book of Dead Philosphers by Simon Critchley

TYPOGRAPHICAL

Is it just me or does it just seem right that a book would feature great typography on it’s cover?

Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Rusell Rich

Gig by John Bowe, Marisa Bowe, and Sabin Streeter

1984 by George Orwell

Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Everything is Cinema by Richard Brody

The Tibetan Book of the Dead

Love the One You’re With by Emily Giffin

Finger Lickin’ Fifteen by Janet Evanovich

The Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd by John Hitchinson

Vertigo by Dan Auiler

Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things by George Lakoff

I included this because it felt like it was designed in a very minimalistic style but it intensely highlighed the name of the book. I couldn’t stop looking at it so I feel it’s worth sharing.

A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert

ILLUSTRATIVE

Book covers with illustration usually work out well because the style of the art can really translate what the book’s tone is.

Summer Blonde by Adrian Tomine

Red Colored Elegy by Seiichi Hayashi

A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Paperback)

Abandon The Old in Tokyo by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

Comic Book Tattoo

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast by Lewis Wolpert

Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine

Blankets by Craig Thompson

Sleepwalk by Adrian Tomine

Lullaby Chuck Palahniuk

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

Buddha 8 by Osamu Tezuka

The Book of Vice by Peter Sagal

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk

Ice haven by Daniel Clowes

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

MISCELLANEOUS

Something Missing by Matthew Dicks

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon

Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict

In Hanuman’s Hands by Cheeni Rao

Stiff by Mary Roach

Maya Angelou

Bonk by Mary Roach

The Political Unconscious by Fedric Jameson

Let me know what I missed! Comment!

Toy Pistols

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That’s a bad motherf… shut yo’ mouth!

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Board Games

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Alphabet Blocks

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Bicycles

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Trains

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Toy Animals

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Five down from the top left – I proclaim thee “crack dog”.

Erector Sets

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Sounds like there’s a joke in here somewhere, but this is a classy website…

Christmas Stockings

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What’s your favorite catalog ad? Comment!

All lyrics copyright of Anthony Ray (Sir Mix-a-Lot) and Nastymix.

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Becky would love it if you left a comment.

Garamond Semibold

Semibold is very useful, it’s a great weight for this font.

Garamond Italic

Ampersand sighting!

Garamond Bold

Garamond Regular

Happy April Fool’s Day!

What’s your favorite lyrics from this song? Let me know in the comments!

This “article” sums up the spirit of this website. We do real design and web dev topics but in a different way than the other guys. So subscribe if you dig it:
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Wonderful, beautiful Helvetica… My precious…

Franklin Gothic with it’s awesome condensed versions featured on this cover. Notice how the “big C” has the end slope off in different directions?

This one is a bit tougher — can anybody guess? King of this post to the first to answer it correctly!

A photograph of a photograph of the definition of a photograph…

Don’t you love those lovely damaged edges on these books and that slightly sun damaged yellowed paper?!

How do you like my photography skills? Let me know in the comments!

New Hotness — Overall Winner

I Love Typography — The first one’s the hardest by Jeremy Mickel

I love this article. Jeremy worked so hard on that typeface and I just felt so inspired reading it. He spend a year and half on Router and it’s simply brilliant. So much personality in such a elegant package. The italic “k” i simply brilliant. I’d totally punch a leprechaun in the face for this typeface.

New Hotness — Typography

DesignWorkPlan — Font Series: Arial is everywhere by Sander Baumann

Arial IMO, is like a Budweiser to Helvetica’s Stella Artois but it’s still better than Miller Light.

New Hotness — Web Dev

Smashing Magazine — 5 Universal Principles For Successful eCommerce-Sites by Jeff Olson

New Hotness — Design

Noisy Decent Graphics — Is it time to retire the black and white logo? — by Ben Terrett

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Vector Tuts — How to Create Exploded Isometrics by Cody Walker

New Hotness — Top Lists

Six Revisions — 70 Excellent Logo Design Tutorials and Resources by Jacob Gube

Did I miss your website? Do you love leprechauns? Hit me up in the comments!

Get your lighters ready! Today, we’re looking at designs commissioned by bands/labels – usually meaning they are some of the most creative, expressive and innovative illustrations, layout and techniques. Most often they are applied to cover art and gig posters but some of the most memorable era of a band can often be summarized by “that” t-shirt. For Weezer, I think it might have been the Adrian Tomine ladies tee. Nirvana had that weird looking Daniel Johnston alien looking line drawing thing that they were known for before they blew up.

We have a selection of Illustrative, typographical and just plain ol’ interesting categories for you to peruse from (surprise treat at the end):

ILLUSTRATIVE

Sub Pop representin’ the other white meat…


Blitzen Trapper loves them gosh darn angry bears…

CSS has the craziest shirt yet…

Patent Pending is thinking in the radius towards the exterior of the box…

Sleater Kinney is leafy…

Arcade Fire is three dimensionally blingin’…

Spoon hearts old hotness…

Spoon, I almost bought this one actually at pitchfork last year but I didn’t…

30 Seconds to Mars is badass, silkscreen wise atleast…

Brazilian Girls are my new “go to” for hot t-shirts

Pete Yorn dedicates this one to the ladies…

TYPOGRAPHY

Broken Social Scene, the beautiful sans-serif…

Radio Head gets texty…

I Blame You blames t-shirts…

Matador records loves pandas…

Black Keys gets all high school gym tee on us

ALO loves head(s)…

Wilco’s chirpy…

Wilco’s also sans-serify…

Rilo Kiley is dressed up…

Flight of the Concords is sky high…

Drive By Truckers is new typeness…

INTERESTING

Wilco is the punisher of love…

Foals is on the bird bandwagon…

Brazilian Girls are dirty! Muchacha Sucia…

Spoon and preserved zombie hands…

Spoon hearts nudity and pyramids…

30 Seconds To Mars goes oriental…

Matador is WTF?!?

John Tesh ummm… just checking to see if you’re still there!

Comment and let me know who I left out!

HELVETICA

• Created in 1957
• A “Grotesk” sans-serif (any early sans-serif essentially)
• Created to compete with Akidenz-Grotesk
• Updated to be more legible and consistent in 1983 (christened Helvetica Neue)
• A film was made about it
• Thx, to simplebitsdan for CC photo! BTW, I met Dan at ALA SF in 2008. Awesome dude.

Gill Sans

• Created in 1928 by Eric Gill
• A “Humanist” sans-serif (a calligraphic sans-serif essentially)
• Originally intended as a painted storefront lettering for a bookstore
• Beloved for the quirks and personalities that each letter form has
• Thx, to Y.Liu for the photo!

Futura

• Created in 1924-1926 by Paul Renner
• A “Geometric” sans-serif (geometrically oriented essentially)
• It has a reputation of efficiency and straight forwardness. Logically, IKEA has a font based on Futura
• Has roots from Bauhaus movement but much more useful and has aged better
• Thx, to Nick Sherman for CC photo!

Franklin Gothic

• Created in 1902 by Morris Fuller Benton
• Some classify this as a “Realist” sans-serif (basically a generic sans-serif) but I don’t agree. FG can be badass. That’s why I choose this pic.
• Was and is still used tremendously in newspaper/magazine ads. I would say the reason for that is the wonderful condensed versions that look great even capped.
• Thx, to DC/WB for image!

Univers

• Created in 1954 by Adrian Frutiger
• Classified as a “Realist” sans-serif
• A number system is used to describe weights
• This family has 44 faces (possibly why it requires a dewey decimal system to pick out a thickness!)
• Thx, to vistavision for the CC image!