I’ve been working with a few local musicians lately on website updates and post card designs. Three of these musicians have a predilection for art nouveau / art deco fonts which has lead me to research what’s available out there. Now I’d like share my research with you, faithful reader. Enjoy this list of 11 beautiful fonts. All are available for free download, but always check the licensing information before using the font in a commercial project.

Nick’s Fonts

I’d like to start the list with 4 fonts by Nick Curtis, who runs an amazing font foundry in Maryland. Check out nicksfonts.com for more info.

Babes In Toyland – NF

A fun “found-object” font based on handwriting found on a piece of sheet music dated 1903.

Back Stage Pass – NF

A nice dramatic font for use on a playbill, perhaps.

Full Tilt Boogie – NF

One of my favs on this list – great shapes!

Ginger Peachy – NF

Fonts By George Williams

Next we have 2 by digital typography master George Williams. From his body of work, it is easy to surmise that he has an affinity for the Deco / Noveau eras. Check out his site.

Parisian

Thin and sexy!

Bocklin

A classic Noveau look. Calls to mind Toulouse Lautrec, or Mucha.

Kalenderblatt Grotesk

A great font by prolific typographer, Dieter Steffmann. This type face was my first exposure to this style of art. I used it for a poster advertising a play set in The Great Depression.

Market Deco

A clean entry from, Steve Ferrera, a designer with an impressive list of font families to his credit.

Broad Bay

A clean, curvy font by veteran graphic designer, Thomas E.  Harvey.

Jerk

A pointy font by Larry Jarvis.

Centre Claws

A stylish font from Peter Wiegel, an eclectic German typographer with a wide variety of typefaces.

Thanks for checking out my list. Please share links to any of your current projects as I’d love to see what you are working on!

-Rocco

Tags: fonts, graphic design, Typography, web design

This entry was posted on Friday, May 21st, 2010 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Typography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.