Antique Roman Fonts for Rustic Cards, Maps, and Lettering

Creative Market April 17, 2024 · 5 min read

When you’re making a project that needs to feel rustic or old-fashioned, one of the best design elements you can include is an Antique Roman font. These fonts can give maps, books, cards, and brand identity projects a distinct feel of a different era.

10 Fonts Schuss Serif Pro

Typic schuss created 10 Fonts Schuss Serif Pro. This set of 10 typefaces was designed to have more clarity than other old-fashioned typefaces, and the set comes with 10 OTF fonts (five upright, five italics).

Geographica

was designed by Three Islands Press. It’s a serif font that was inspired by the 18th century cartographic materials created by Thomas Jefferys. It’s very legible and exudes a hand-drawn warmth.

1669 Elzevir OTF (PRO)

If you want a font that’s inspired by historic Dutch typefaces, check out 1669 Elzevir OTF (PRO) by GLC Foundry. This font is derived from a text on anatomy written by Richard Lower in 1669. It has 404 glyphs in two styles, normal and italic.

1786 GLC Fournier Set OTF

GLC Foundry also created 1778 GLC Fournier Set OTF. It was inspired by books printed in Paris in the 1700s. This font is especially good for enlargements.

Heirloom Artcraft Family

was created by Baseline Fonts. It was inspired by the feeling that you get when an older family member comes to visit: gentleness, subtlety, warmth, and politeness. The font comes in thin, thin italic, book, book italic, demi italic, black, and black italic variants.

Attic Antique Roman

Go way back to the Roman Empire with Attic Antique Roman from Three Islands Press. The font has more than 800 glyphs in it with a few floral ornaments.

Karma – Semi Bold Serif Font

Graceful Market made Karma – Semi Bold Serif font, a font that is sleek and minimalistic. This font family includes a script variant.

Roijer (single)

Check out Roiker from peggo, a font that is meant to be fresh and classic while evoking an antique majestic feeling. The font has two variants and 541 glyphs that exude elegance and audacity.

Legion

Esquivel Type Foundry released Legion, a font with 210 characters including uppercase, lowercase, numbers, punctuation, special characters, and 17 extended Latin characters.

Mussica OT

Check out Mussica OT from Corradine Fonts if you’re looking for something that is elegant, but with a touch of whimsy. Think a court jester – when he’s not joking around.

Wolf Shadow

Esquivel Type Foundry created Wolf Shadow, a typeface that pays “homage to the traditional structure of early Roman serif fonts.” The font is very uniform and all letters are the same height, including uppercase, lowercase, and numbers. The designer recommends using it for headlines or logos.

Carrig Pro – 12 Elegant Serif Fonts

To get more bang for your buck, download Carrig Pro from Paulo Goode. This set of 12 fonts was inspired by a wide range of eras, from early Roman to pre-modern. The fonts have a full Latin character set, 750 glyphs per font, small caps, alternates, historical characters, and more.

1546 Poliphile Set OTF

The designer of 1546 Poliphile Set, GLC Foundry, was inspired by a French edition of Hypnerotomachie de Poliphile, or “The Strife of Love in a Dream,” which was printed in Paris in 1546. Expect to find old-fashioned lettering, including all of the specific Latin abbreviations and ligatures used in the very specific edition that inspired the design of the typeface.

Turquoise

contains Roman capitals that are designed to be smooth so that the strokes are fluid and elegant. The font has small caps, discretionary figures, ligatures, ornaments, and swashes.

Typnic Roman

was created by Corradine Fonts. It is a rough contour font that evokes the feeling of carvings or rustic wood. This font is composed of only capital letters.

Fnord Roman Collection

is a set of five fonts created by designer Paulo Goode. It comes in five weights for one style with 680 per font. This simple and elegant font is perfect for headlines, logotype, and branding.

Marschel: A Classy Roman Typeface

Marschel

is a font created by Zeune Ink Foundry. It’s an elegant Roman typeface and it consists of 291 glyphs in three different weights. Within the typeface you can find special characters, ligatures, and contextual alternates.

1533 GLC Augereau PRO OTF

GLC Foundry was inspired to created 1533 GLC Augereau PRO OTF by the work of Antoine Augereau, a 15th- and 16th-century punchcutter and printer in Paris. This alphabet contains a complete small caps collection and comes in all West, East, and Central European languages – including Turkish, Baltic, and Celtic.

Carrig Roman: 3 Elegant Serif Fonts

Paulo Goode created Carrig Roman, a set of 3 elegant fonts that evoke a feeling of classical antiquity. Choose one of the fonts for branding, headlines, body text, or logotype.

When it comes to making a project feel like it’s from the past, fonts are one of the most effective tools. The above antique Roman fonts can help make your projects feel authentic and look pleasing to the eye.