All the designs that comprise the Altemus Collection were designed with the goal of crafting an extensive library of graphic elements and continues to this day. Altemus started his Initial work in 1991, shortly after the release of the first programs that allowed the construction of Bezier outline fonts.

Decades of research

The individual characters in the Altemus Collection are not culled from other typographic sources and the designs are not merely auto-traced. They are all based on observation and exploration, and in most cases on quick thumbnails that capture the essence of the found designs. The rough sketches are then explored and developed. Since the forms are drawn in vector format they allow us to experiment with various weights and stylistic variations, often yielding a series of new designs.

Varied sources

The individual designs are derived from our vast graphic history, inspired by items as diverse as medieval heraldic emblems and 18th-century colonial Portuguese decorative elements. Many historical design movements became the basis for a variety of character designs; Babylonian symbols, Brazilian art deco architecture, Spanish art nouveau, Punk band posters, old printing cuts, American quilt designs and even 1950s American textile motifs.

Many other designs were included because of their traditional usage in printed materials. We scoured flea markets, observing the decorative elements used on old packaging and in period book and signage designs.

About the designer

Robert Altemus, a New York based designer, has over forty years of experience in art direction for print, interactive and broadcast. He is a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Art with a major in illustration and film, and the recipient of well over a hundred and fifty national design, illustration and typographic awards.

EPS outlines

We've taken all of the current Altemus font designs, curated and organized them, and included them in this extensive font & vector art collection.

For some fonts, we have included less vector outlines, because we've excluded alternate versions that are less useful, for example; providing an arrow icon that points in one direction rather than providing multiple arrow icons that point in four different directions. Furthermore, there were some great designs that never made it into the fonts, and we have added the best of those to our new vectors.

Collection index

In addition, we created a 382-page PDF showing for the entire collection and indexed it, so finding and searching the designs is as easy as possible. The collection is presented alphabetically, with a font showing and all related vector designs, presented in groups of twenty-five.

We are certain you will get excellent use from this collection and will find it a valuable resource for years to come.