Rubens? As revealed here earlier on Typophile.

Thanks... saved my bacon, so to speak, as the client wanted to know where they could get the font, and I never intended it to be "official."

Rubens is close enough for my immediate crisis, but i have to wonder if there isn't another cut of this face out there. While legibility is not a word I would use describing either face, Rubens is a little heavy-handed for me personally (serifs are shallow, general angularity to the letters like lowercase "s", very short ascenders - or high x-height). The lowercase "t" and "f" are almost unreadable.

I know that there is a non-digital version of this, I think as photo or metal type, out there somewhere (not that it does me any good on my Mac)... guess this is my excuse to unpack my vintage specimen books, as I can picture this face (non-condensed) in my favorite, from 1907 or so.

The hunt continues! Set loose the dogs, jeeves!

Looks like a condensed version of Macbeth

http://www.myfonts.com/search?search%5Btext%5D=macbeth

Tim

Ravenscroft was indeed inspired by variations of the analog Rubens typeface. It was created by myself and Tim McKenny, in an attempt to emulate the particular style used in the signage at Disney's Haunted Mansion attractions. Its current 'home' is at http://mickeyavenue.com/fonts/ravenscroft/

The Wooden Type digitization available on MyFonts appears to be based on a rather rough source. The only other commonly available digitization I know of is on Dan Solo's Victorian Type book/CD.

The PC-TrueType version of Ravenscroft should work under Mac OS X, I've never noticed any problems. The old Mac version was ported by someone else, and I've never used it myself. If you would let me know what kind of trouble it's giving you, I might be able to repair or generate a different format.

Looks like a condensed version of Macbeth

ARGH! The Scottish font! Hot potato, off his drawers, Puck will make amends. Aaahh!! :)

Indeed.

"The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the Devil's own Satanic Herd!"

--such has my week been.

For a little more on the Rubens/Macbeth versions, the NovelFonts included in the Expresiv Ornate font collection in the mid-90's had Rublof (Rubens) and Macklen (Macbeth). These fonts seem to have disappeared from circulation, but I have the collection. If you just need a few words set in one of them you can contact me through my e-mail here at Typophile.

- Mike Yanega

Rubens and MacBeth are both being sold by myfonts.com, I assume legally, so they're still floating around. I bought rubens for my client for now to solve my immediate problem, but I'm still poking around for an "ultimate" solution (probably will have to finish my early Fontographer work).

In case my first post was missed, I am the co-author of Ravenscroft, and can attest that Ravenscroft was based on Rubens, not Macbeth (is there a condensed weight of Macbeth?).

To the best of my knowledge, Rubens was a Victorian-era typeface from the 19th century, produced in several weights. Ravenscroft is a fairly accurate revival of a condensed weight of Rubens.

The version of Rubens sold on MyFonts is another independent revival. Unfortunately it seems to have been based on a rough source and lacks many of the font's finer details.

Other digital versions of Rubens can be found in the aforementioned Dan X. Solo book/CD and an extra-condensed weight from the famously elusive Castcraft Software.

Scott, if Ravenscroft is not working properly for you on Mac OS X, I would be interested to know what specific issues you are having. Even if you have reservations about using it for your project, it would be nice to improve future versions for Mac users.

I can't quote the specific problem, as I had it a few months ago... if i recall correctly, the "current" version of Ravenscroft (1.2) is a Windows TrueType download; yes, it _should_ work fine in OS X, and I think it will if I install it directly into the System's font folder(s), but FontAgent Pro and Linotype's FontExplorer both had difficulty with it -- it would not flag it as a "bad" or "corrupted" font, but the font wouldn't render (choosing it from the menu just got you geneva or whatever the default font is). Couldn't access/convert to the outlines in Illustrator either. I believe that I got it working (after a couple of tries and downloads) in FontAgent Pro, but unfortunately, my employer is cheap and we're running FontExplorer on most of the machines here (I bought my own copy of FA Pro 'cuz I love it).

My workaround at the time was to open the TTF in FontLab and regenerate it as an OpenType font to install on the four machines that needed it at the time (an old-time circus project that Ravenscroft fit well into). Don't worry, I haven't distributed it or anything.

Now we're working on a Style Guide for a major Hollywood Studio (name withheld), and as we were putting forth ideas for "offical" typefaces, Ravenscroft was one of the choices a designer threw in. It _would_ have been a great choice (free and all), but the Client Studio in questions is NOT Disney -- and they wouldn't appreciate us using a font with Disney logos embedded in it, downloaded from "disneyfonts.com", etc.

My crisis erupted when the client asked us where they could get some of the fonts we were using... I didn't even know they had _seen_ them, much less decided which one(s) they wanted to use. So I had to scramble up an alternative that same day (thanks to you all who helped) to cover our butts.

I agree that (MyFont.com's) Rubens is an inferior implementation to yours, but I couldn't in good conscience let the Studio use it and discover the Disney connection down the road. It's also safer legally to tell licensees to purchase a font for themselves rather than download a "free" one (there's no way to know wich version they might download, and I couldn't find any specific legal/license that applies to Ravenscroft -- is it public domain, is it freeware, is it only for personal use...?)

Thanks for both the info and the original font... it's very much still in my library.

Have you any plans for an OTF update?

Thanks Scott for sharing your troubleshooting details. I hadn't tried Ravenscroft in FontExplorer. I'm wondering if the embedded logos could be causing your grief in that area too, since a few of them have tons of compound outlines.

My plan for the next version of Ravenscroft is to move all of that Disney stuff into its own font and finish the rest of the character set. It will definitely be OpenType, with stylistic alternates.

Regarding the license, the only real guideline is in the text file where it does say "for personal use," mainly due to the trademarked logos within. But nobody reads the text file, and inevitably it's been sighted in plenty of commercial work. We don't really mind.

I once licensed a logo-free version of Ravenscroft for a publishing company. If you're interested in working something out, please feel free to contact me either through my website or my Typophile contact page.