Type Design

Over the years Henry has had the good fortune to be very involved with the alphabet in a more than casual way. From calligraphy to photolettering and type design, he has been active in letter arts. In the 1980's he set headlines, letter by letter by letter, on a VGC Typositor at Phil's Photolettering in Washington DC. The desktop computer quickly destroyed that entire industry, and that is how he became involved with computer graphics and digital type design. In the early 1990s, he worked as a type designer for FontBank, and consulted for several other type companies, including Microsoft and Galoob Toys. It's nearly impossible to make a living in type design these days, as the industry was basically done in by a combination of legal precedents and rampant piracy. Having worked on "conventional" / Western / Roman fonts for so long, Henry has acquired a preference for unusual or obscure fonts or alphabets. The designs here are indicative of that interest. As it is today, there are jillions of Roman fonts - a true glut of fonts - but other languages and alphabets are often left wanting with meagre selections. Henry sees this as a great pity, as he believes they would benefit greatly from the design innovations in western/Roman font development. Below are some of the fonts he has designed - displayed in the font of that name - with some description. He is always available for type design work or consulting, and feel free to contact him in this regard.

If you are interested in acquiring any of these fonts, just click on the link and download them! You too can type stuff that No One Understands.

Henry has spent a lot of time making sure that the fonts are cleanly designed and have a minimum of points for a maximum of outline, ensuring that these fonts load fast, and print cleanly. They are designed in Fontographer and then output in FontLab.

Standard Fonts for Foreign Languages

Below are standard Fonts for some foreign languages. I have these available for Macintosh and Windows Operating systems, and I have them in both TrueType and PostScript formats.

Coptic is the alphabet used in Ethiopia and Eritrea in East Africa. It is an ancient alphabet. It is most often seen as a quasi-handwritten style. Here I have used letterforms and serifs similar to those found in the English Typeface, Cheltenham. This aids in readability at small sizes, and is elegant for display purposes.

Fruthrak sans is a sans serif font based on futhark, the ancient alphabet of the Germanic tribes of medieval and pre-medieval Europe. This particular style I believe is Norse Futhark. The weight is similar to Helvetica Normal.

This is a font for the Ojibway Native American language. I designed it so it shares weight and curvature with Futura Normal. I have a few other versions of Ojibway and Cherokee in various states of completion. Sigh. Someday...

Magick Fonts

These fonts were commmissioned by some religious organisations who wanted to be able to publish material in obscure occult languages. These are the most unusual fonts I have produced. These are also available for Macintosh and Windows Operating systems, in both TrueType and PostScript formats.

This alphabet, Celestia, was used by secret societies as a cipher. This is a light, evenly weighted sans serif version of the alphabet.

This dramatic alphabet was used as a cipher by secret societies in the 19th century. This version is a "cleaner" and more geometric version of the face.

Enochian was developed by John Dee, famed personal astrologer to Queen Elizabeth the First of England. Normally this, like Coptic, is seen in a more gestural, handwritten form. Here, I have used serifs, weights, and stresses similar to those found in Time Roman, and adapted them to the Enochian letterforms, making a font that is much more readable at smaller sizes, and is certainly cleaner and more graceful in appearance. I designed this back in 1995.

This geometric alphabet used by secret societies in the late Renaissance. This is a book weighted version of the alphabet, readable at small sizes.