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Hi, I'm a newbie here, but I've been dabbling in typography and font design on my own for a few years now. I have discovered a style of ornamental capital which I'm eager to find as a font. I'm not sure if it is really a font, though. It might just be fancy customised lettering.

I found these capitals in a book called "Angels: An Endangered Species". I was actually more impressed by these capitals than by the content of the book. I just stumbled on this site, and there seem to be more than a few folks here who really know their fonts :)

Okay, a little more detail on this: I've searched through the text, and these ornate caps are reserved for chapter openings (as they should be), so there are few of them. I was only able to spot these 4 letters (some are used more than once at various places).

Any ideas on this one? The engraved look of the detail makes me think that it's probably custom lettering, but with font design as intricate as it is these days, I figured even for a book that's been around since 1990, that there might be such a font. Oh, and one more thing: the typesetting of the text was done by someone in Florence, italy by the name of Simonetta Castelli. I know, it's a long shot, but I can't find anything but pages in Italian on her (hmm ... wonder why?? ;) Thanks in advance for helping!

David

I tried to look for infos about Simonetta Castelli, but the only one popping up in Google is an Italian athlete. If you need it, show me some pages relating to a Simonetta Castelli involved in desktop publishing and I'll translate them for you.
That's the best I can do.

hi, I am the one who typeset the book.

Unfortunately no, that wasn't a font. They were images scanned and inserted one by one - in fact, until not long ago I had all the scanned images on a disc, but I'm afraid I don't anymore.

Sorry! I could try to get in touch with my friend who designed the book, who knows, she might have the source images somewhere.

Geez, see how small is our world!!! I would never assume that Simonetta would reply :) Looks like someone has been Googling herself :)

I was. There was a reason. :)

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Greetings, Ms Castelli,

I never dreamed that I would have heard from you personally on this thread !! :D How strange is that?!?!
Incidentally, thank you very much for replying here. If you're still following this thread, I would like you to know that I have created rough sketches of the rest of the capitals not represented in that book -- all 22 of them. Did you design the artwork for those capitals?

If you did, I would very much appreciate your approval in my efforts to generate a digital font (.ttf or .otf format) of the entire 26-letter character set, using my sketches as a template for the overall design. I don't have any designs on selling it or using it for profit otherwise, but I have a website that I think would look better with those particular capitals in the text. I'm currently using Royal Initialen for that particular site's drop caps. It doesn't look bad, but I really like the style of the caps from that book.

I've attached a sample of the sketches for the entire character set, with the originals from the book (I, S, T, W) at the top.

If you are able to do so, I would be in your debt if you could get the original artwork ... does it include the enitre alphabet, or just the 4 letters used in the book?

David

hi David, I did have the entire alphabet once, as Tiff images. I'll try to get in touch with the designer, who found them somewhere and had them copied/scanned.
I'll let you know if I get hold of her.
Compliments, great job you did!
I used to create fonts from scans, using Fontographer on Mac - I'm talking of a million years ago. Around the same time when I was working on that book!
Yes, Internet makes the world very small.

Thank you for your assistance in this, Ms Castelli,
Please feel free to send me a private email message through my profile on this website if you need to reach me. I tried to send an email message to you via your profile, but I don't think it worked.

Excuse me for jumping in this thread. Please feel free to end this through private messages but I am extremely interested in the outcome. When I first saw the ID request I immediately thought of Saraband Lettering but that was way out. I did the same exercise as Sergio with the same zero result and decided not to answer.
Nevertheless, these are (imho) so much nicer than Saraband that I would really like to see them digitized. And happily offer some assistance in the process - if so needed.

Whatever, please don't let these initials disappear. They are too beautiful. And when digitizing succeeds, don't make it a freebee. There is enough free rubbish around. This has commercial value.

Success!

Hi, koeiekat,

I will most certainly keep this thread up-to-date with anything I learn externally, in the event that is the case. However, as the artwork for these capitals existed prior to my work. I would be a little hesitant about charging for a digitised version of it as a font.

However, if I were to digitise my designs (inspired by the I, S, T, & W shown initially), and if they were different enough from the originals, I suppose that publishing those might be a commercial possibility.

(I can appreciate your comparison to the Sarabande lettering, but I haven't heard of or seen any font by the name Sergio anywhere. Do you have a link to it, koeiekat?)

But, I still need to hear from Ms Castelli further. Any word, Simonetta?

David

Ehehehehheheh! Sergio it's just me, David, and as those initials I have yet to be digitized.
I answered before just because Simonetta is Italian like me, and having not found any info about her prior to her show-up here, I offered me to translate any of the info about her that could possibly come up in Italian.

Hi, Sergio,

I guess I should read (or re-read) a bit more thoroughly in future before making myself look foolish, hehe :D

I re-read koeiekat's message, and I now realise the meaning of the mention of your name :P

David

hahahaah I'm famous here - thanks to Sergio!!!

No, David, I didn't have time to look up my designer friend yet. I just got a new job and I'm also pretty busy with my other current business, making jewelry (btw, why not? I'll make some publicity - www.gracejewelbox.com, check it out - it's nice) so be patient a little longer, I think I CAN get hold of her through common acquaintances.

Hi, Simonetta,

There's no rush for this on my end, please take your time. I have several "irons in the fire" right now as well.

I, too, just started a new job! How strange is that?

David

@Simonetta Castelli:hahahaah I'm famous here - thanks to Sergio!!!

Piacere mio, Simonetta. And congratulations for your current business: the jewels are really nice. The Sedona and Chains collections make me sad of being born a man.

Indeed, the jewelry is quite nice, Simonetta. For the sake of its beauty, I, too, feel at a loss for not having been born female, or at least flambuoyant enough to consider wearing it as a man! hehehe

Well, the new job didn't work out (apparently). So the search has begun anew (again … *sigh*).

By the way, for those who might be interested, here is the URL for the site where I am currently using "Royal Initialen" as my ornamental capital font. If you use a recent version of IE, you should be able to see them, as I use Microsoft's WEFT to embed the fonts on the site.

http://www.basilikon.com/ltarot/

David

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Just poking my face in here to check on this thread.
Simonetta, I hate to nag, but have you had any luck contacting that friend of yours who _may_ still have digital copies of these letter? Just asking.

I started a new job last month! (Huzzah!) just in time for the holiday season to snap up my new cashflow :P

David