Gothic alphabets
Gothic alphabets is an 1897 London portfolio of decorative letter designs issued by the International Chalcographical Society, edited by Jaro Springer and drawing on fifteenth-century engravers such as E. S. and Master W with the Key. Its plates show single initials built from Gothic architecture and figures, with roman numerals printed beneath each one. Designers can take from these plates the way tracery, pinnacles and canopies are turned into the strokes of a capital, and the way a letter can be filled with an animal or human figure.
