Cool stuff!
BTW, what's that "y" in the first image?

hhp

Vectorian?!

@Brant : The "Y" come from the font AW Conqueror Didot light by Jean Francois Porchez
(and it's free :-)

Vectorian = Mix of Vector + Victorian
(and it's maybe a weird word play ;-)

Well, I don't get the pune in 'hand drawned'.

I talking about 'Hand drawned', because it's not autotraced by Illustrator automatic function,
which is way faster but don't give good results.

It shoul be hand-drawn or drawn by hand.

@riccardo : Thanks for correcting my spelling mistake !

Ahh... Sometimes the simple answers...

@riccardo, it should be should :-)

***

Back on track:
Nicely done, but what are your sources?

The Victorian era was very long and encompassed many different genres, from revivals to original styles (both Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau occurred during the era).

The Manual of Linotype Typography of 1923 associates typefaces with ornaments, by style and era.

Nicolete Gray's 19th Century Ornamented Type Faces does a brilliant job of identifying the different genres of Victorian type by decade, and associating them with contemporary movements in art and architecture. Perhaps you could use her timeline as a basis for metadata, adding depth and resonance to your collection—and it would suggest ways of matching type style to type ornament.

Ops! :-)

Nice suggestion Nick !
And some good sources to check, but the one from Nicolete Gray cost more than $1000 and is hard to find.
Definitely out of reach for me, I will have to wait to sell more packs ;-)

I admit that so far, I made a compilation without caring too much about classifying by date or rationalize it. I'm from a web designer background and I'm not a specialist about typography and font history.
I just wanted to provide a large choice of ornaments at a fair price (and easy to use with illustrator, I don't like use fonts for ornaments).

I picked ornaments in a lot of different type foudry catalog available by Internet, thanks Google books and Gallica ( gallica.bnf.fr )
So here is some catalogs I used :
. American Type Founders
. Barnhart bros. and Splinder
. George's Bruce
. Cleveland Type Foundry
. Farmers type foundry
. franklin Type Foundry (Cincinati)
. Inland Type Foundry
. Keystone Type Foundry
. Mackellar, Smiths 7 Jordan Co.
. Imprimerie Edmond Monnoyer
. Palmer & rey
. Fonderie Turlot

Actually, the more I worked on these ornaments, the more I learned.
I'm currently reading the old and excellent "Grammar of ornaments" by Owen Jones.
And I realized that behind the nineteenth century, the inspiration for lot of these ornaments come from old civilizations (Egypt, Greece, Roma, etc.) and previous era (renaissance, Baroque, etc.)
It would make sense to categorize them in this way too.

Searching ornaments, choosing and vectorize it was a time consuming task.
If these ornaments sells well, I plan to release more and to take time to organize it better.
Also, I would love to create a manual to explain the proper way to create genuine ornaments (huge project...)

Vincent, don't underestimate the power of libraries!
Over these past ~13 years I've saved... dunno, $20K?

hhp

You've taken it to the next level, Vincent! Compilation, artwork, and packaging — I especially like the way you've sorted the ornaments into different categories and explained how to use them in Illustrator.

**

People always say Victorian decoration is derivative of previous cultures, and Jones' book lends credence to that understanding.
But it's much harder to recognize what's new and original, within that cauldron of crazy prolific synthetic invention—especially for we decoratively challenged children of modernity who have spent a century associating newness with the opposite of decoration.

@ hrant : What do you mean ?
Buying the original paper Type Foundry catalogs ?

Buying nothing.
For example instead of paying ~$100* for the Gray book try to see if a local library
has a copy. If not, a local library might do what's called an ILL for you, for free.

* Not $1000! Check bookfinder.com.

hhp

@ Nick

Whaow, thanks for appreciating it !
I' m blessed to hear that from you as I know and love your work :-)
By the way, I plan to release a manual and a demonstration video.

You're right about the twentieth century rejection of ornaments and decorations.
We're living in the "less is more" era, and in my daily job I create minimalist Web Designs (in an Apple / Braun style).
That's maybe why I felt in love with these quaint ornaments, which are lively, exuberants and imperfects.

Creating a victorian inspired website was a playful experience, and as a web designer I see more and more vintage design, texturized and distressed elements in websites...
Designers try to inject more life in their creations and get rid of the aseptic and clean design.

@ hrant
Thanks for the advice !
Unfortunately as I'm living in Thailand, it won't be easy to find some librairies but I will check Bookfinder.com

FWIW, based on an email I got last week from Boris Kochan (president of
Typographische Gesellschaft München) it sounds like Bangkok University
might have connections to Linotype and Reading University*; if that's true
they might be more typographically aware than what one expects...

* http://www.typefacedesign.org/2010/

hhp

Awesome!

Thanks Pablo !

By the way, I love you Lobster font and I'm using it for different projects.
You made a amazing font, and you give it for free generously.
So, if you are interested I can give you for free the complete pack, just tweet me : @webalys

Cheers !

Double Awesome!! :)

Just tweeted
http://twitter.com/#!/pabloimpallari/status/90251954785230849

Thanks Vincent!
my email is impallari@gmail.com

Thanks for the tweet !
Just sent you the complete pack :-)

And thanks for the Lobster font, love the version 2.0 :-)

Thur's nobody ever gunna convince me Pablo Impallari has not earned that package.