Find those dings!
Our dingbat helper has individual links to over 2000 freeware and shareware dingbat fonts, listed alphabetically by font name / topic
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Freeware Fonts by Nikos Goulandris
An unusual collection of fonts with a historical flavour, many not often seen, and originally created as TrueType fonts for the Mac community in the mid-1990s. See further notes below about these fonts and in particular the BasBayeux titles, including links to other sources of information about the Bayeux Tapestry.
Fonts are in TrueType format. If you have difficulty extracting files from the zip, you may need to download WinZip or a similar utility. For help with unzipping your files and installing fonts, see links on our installation page.
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Previews show selected outlines, not full character sets, and are low resolution images only.
Background info:
Originally we had only the four BasBayeux fonts by this designer, Nikos Goulandris, but while scouring cyberspace to find out a little more about him (without too much success) we came across more of his titles in dark and dusty places. Together they have built up into this collection — not too sure if we now have all the dingbat titles, but do know he made other styles as well. Author comments when releasing these fonts are included in the zip files along with any other documentation if applicable. Apart from the BasBayeux titles, all were saved in Mac TT format which we have since converted, and therefore no guarantees are given about their quality or usability.
Several of the fonts are not what you'd call mainstream and may be of interest to only a minority, but others such as Cosette, Marius and Palefroi will find homes in many collections.
Comments with the AdamantiosK, AlexandrosP and IakovosP fonts explain that they show portraits of Greek personalities (or mainly Greek, and mostly 19th century), but again they could be useful if you were looking for head or portrait outlines. Each of the three zips includes a table giving names and dates for individuals shown, along with the keyboard characters assigned to them, but they are in a format we have been unable to open. They were sent to Notepad as plain text and the results are also included in the zips: it's clear the details are there amongst the muddle, but not plain enough to decipher, so if anyone downloading these files can help future users by opening the original tables and sending us accurate converted lists, we'd be very grateful (see our text file in the zips).
Characters in the four BasBayeux fonts are based on illustrations contained in the Bayeux Tapestry. The tapestry was made over a period of about ten years towards the end of the 11th century, and depicts the relationship between Duke William and Harold, the Norman invasion of England, and the death of King Harold in 1066. Some of the vivid scenes and imagery contained in the tapestry are reproduced in these fonts: animals, birds, religious and rural scenes, soldiers, weaponry, preparations for war, and of course the Battle of Hastings itself. While some of the outlines are detailed and quite intricately drawn, others are very simple, but the fonts could be of interest if you want to illustrate material about the period of history from the Dark to Middle Ages.
It's a little surprising the BasBayeux fonts haven't been seen more in the PC community, as they seem to have been converted from Mac originals the best part of a decade ago. The titles offered are numbered 00, 01, 02 and 04, but there were five in the series altogether. We have never traced a copy of 03 — does any reader have it, in any format??
If you'd like a freeware regular style for lettering to look 'authentic' with your tapestry dingbats, try King Harold by Harold Lohner: download a copy by going to the Famous Artists section at Harold's Fonts.
Another set of four fonts, but only to buy, is Linotype Invasion: three text faces (Wilhelm, Harold and Rex, all based on lettering in the Tapestry) plus the symbol font Invasion Animals, 78 wonderful outlines depicting some of the medieval and mythical creatures (and a few people and ornaments) which decorate the borders of the Tapestry. Any of the four can be purchased individually, and you'll find the Animals font here.
It is believed all the Goulandris titles are freeware, but please bear in mind that copyright still resides with the font designer and that 'freeware' usually means 'free for personal use only'.
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