The infinite possibilities of novelty fonts

Novelty fonts are like the confetti on the typography cake. The possibilities are endless when creating novelty fonts; they can be reminiscent of cultures, ideas, celebrations and holidays, they can be in the shape of monsters, created out of vegetables and even to resemble tufts of hair.

Novelty fonts are considered as the offspring of the Decorative Typeface and are also denominated as Display or Ornamental. These kind of fonts and typefaces became popular in the 19th Century, when used in posters and advertisements. The Art Deco era had it’s own style as did the psychedelic 70’s and the flower power 60’s.

After that, the evolution of the novelty font took off to what it is now, a world full of infinite possibilities. Letters take on special shapes, creating a visual smorgasbord of type. The “old school” type like Art Deco and Psychedelic are still used today and are available in all sorts of styles to be downloaded as .otf files. Below are some examples of Psychedelic Novelty Fonts that can be used in your projects. You can find all the fonts in this article in the Free Font databases like Squirrel Fonts, 1001 Fonts and Dafont.

Here are some Art Deco inspired Novelty Fonts for your next Great Gatsby Party or Epoch Inspired Birthday Bash. You never know, some brands are now using old school styles like this to create their visual identity and who can blame them, these are so much fun!

Common Novelty Fonts

Think of the last time you saw a novelty font, it might have been at your local Chinese Food Restaurant or on a Heavy Metal T-Shirt. These are very common in our day to day, but once upon a time they were special and new. Let’s not forget just how special novelty fonts really are.

We use novelty fonts for special occasions and designs that need to give a special feeling to the viewer. Sometimes we use them in logos if they fit the niche and message. There are some classic novelty fonts like oriental style fonts and newspaper cut outs.

The following fonts are pretty common in the sense that they have been around for a while and are available as working .otf files that can be downloaded and used with your keyboard. When using novelty fonts you have to be careful you pick the right one to fit your your project! There are plenty of font fails out there and you don’t want to be one of them!

Famous Novelty Fonts

Some novelty fonts were created specially for a logo or a brand and then took a personality all their own. Two of them most famous novelty fonts are the Disney and Coca-Cola fonts. There are no “official” Disney and CocaCola fonts but there are very close “inspired” renditions that can be used. For example the Waltograph and LokiCola fonts.

Using these kinds of novelty fonts in your projects can be fun if you really take into consideration what message you want to send. Obviously the Waltograph font would look great in Princess Birthday Invitations or a Blog Post about visiting DisneyLand but it would make no sense in a brochure about yard sprinklers!

Vector Novelty Fonts

Earlier I mentioned how novelty fonts can be created from objects like vegetables or even tufts of hair. These kinds of letters are not usually available as downloadable usable fonts due to the complexity of their nature. They are much better suited as vector files that you have to cut out from an alphabet and pasted freely in your designs.

Vector novelty fonts are usually more complex and quite artistic. Let’s look at some novelty font alphabets available on freepik. This letter monster alphabet is great for projects geared at children, like classroom decorations or cute t-shirts.

Neon letters are all the rage and can be used for all sorts of party or nighttime themes. Here are a couple neon alphabet vectors available on Freepik. These make great quote posts for instagram over a brick and mortar background.

This decorative letter F is part of an entire alphabet, one letter per file so that designers can color them in as desired. A decorative novelty letter like this is usually used as the first letter of a paragraph or chapter in a book or as a home decoration piece. The possibilities are endless if you get creative.

LIke the title of this article says, the infinite possibilities of novelty fonts can take you anywhere you can imagine! For example this origami font and this candy font!  

What is your favorite novelty font? I love the ones that are cute with little eyes and are lots of fun to play with. I also quite like the Coca Cola font actually! Share in the comments if you have ever used these kinds of fonts and maybe if you have seen some terrible novelty font fails!