There’s an old cemetery in Castine, Maine—a lovely coastal town with a surviving crop of stately American elms. Dating back into the 1700s, the cemetery’s headstones have the familiar old domed-tablet shape, some topped by winged skulls. Thanks to the Castine Historical Society, I got my hands on a couple of epitaph rubbings and modeled a typeface after the lost stone carving style peculiar to the time and place. Castine (the font) has a melancholy, wistful, nostalgic air—and is frankly just a little bit spooky. Its long, sharp serifs and slight uneveness recall simpler times when character meant more than precision. Castine has roman and italic styles.* (Check out the epitaphs.) $49 | Order  

*The OpenType release of Castine™ adds numerous ligatures, old-style and lining figures, and Central/Eastern European alphabets.

“Thanks so much for the great service and wonderful typefaces!”
—S.F., Evanston IL

“Well done on preserving the old ways of writing—they wrote and spoke so much nicer than we do now.”
—A.K., Adelaide, S. Australia

“All [these] typefaces are wonderful, romantic creative fonts which no serious designer could possibly overlook.
—G.H., London, England

“Oh! I'm in loooove with this font! It's lovely, it's organic, it's real, it's got history & tradition. My designs are singing!”
—C.C., Palo Alto CA

“Bonsai is very beautiful; the font's antiquity seems to conjure a sweet staleness of old newsprint, somehow.”
—A.T., Ontario, Canada

“[Douglass Pen is a] stupendous achievement!”
—A.B., Encino CA 3IP02301

“The Lamar Pen font is divine. We are using it on a novel set in the eighteenth century, and the author is ecstatic.”
—J.H., London, England