![]() |
Bowfin Printworks is a (very) small type layout design service specializing in personalized stationery products, font identification and online Font Identification Reference works. (Let's face it, it's just me here. To my Bio Page). Our products feature Custom Spice Jar Labels (now available in round labels, various sizes, and NEW OptiClear and SILVER FOIL or GOLD FOIL too), CasualCards, Baseball Scoresheets, and various types of Perpetual Calendars. I also write poetry and share it for your leisure reading at the Bowfin Pond. In addition, I am a hardened list-maker who enjoys nothing more than compiling tables of names and data about all sorts of things including animals, dinosaurs, fish, birds, history, type and anything else that catches my fancy. (Once I put much work in on one, it seems like it's worth sharing the effort). See the results at The Lists & Guides. |
|
![]() |
Perhaps my greatest passion, or perhaps obsession is a better word, is studying and categorizing fonts. There are well over 40,000 typefaces, which is more than the combined number of species of Birds and Fishes! How can anyone know so many fonts? I sure can't, but I have created a number of free online Font Identification Guides, as reference works to help identify some of the types of fonts people ask about most. My biggest and most popular Guide is the Script Font Identification Guide, with its accompanying Script Font Reference List, covering over 3,100 Script and Hand-drawn fonts. This follows my first project, the "Bauhaus-style" Font Identification Guide. |
|
For over 35 years I have been composing poems about the subjects that have captured my interest, whether it was memories of childhood days at the beach, or wondering about the memories lurking in an old house crumbling into ruin among blackberry vines. There always seems to be something you see, hear, or experience, that has other ideas hidden away beneath the surface, that can be teased out into the open with some attention and the right words. When I joined the Saltwater Writers group in 2008 my writing took off, so that I would have something to share each week when we met. My earlier trickle of written pieces swelled into a stream of new works, encouraged by this supportive group. Now, I have collected 196 poems and prose essays to become my first book, "Day Stew — poems and prose". Needless to say, I am excited to have my work published at last, and I look forward to hearing from readers about how they connected with what I have written. Click on the book cover picture (left), or the Bowfin Printworks banner on many of the pages on this site to see a more detailed page about my book, with example subjects, and samples of the writing. From that page you can also link to the download page for a free PDF version of the complete text of "Day Stew", or to a site where you can buy the book, if you want a bound version. I hope those who download will post a review, or give me feedback about how they liked the book. |
||
![]() |
Where else can you get custom-printed Spice Jar Labels, using your own list of spices and in the type style you choose? You can now see two pages of sample typefaces, providing a showcase for over 150 more typefaces from the Bowfin Collection. Showings of Antique fonts have been included, and you can also order round labels and even vertical labels, if you need them that way! We have also added several new sizes and even OptiClear and SILVER FOIL or GOLD FOIL labels to the choices you can make (See Label Styles here). Now you can also choose border designs for the Medium and larger labels. |
|
Have your labels printed in any typeface in the Bowfin Printworks collection.
Another way you get "Just Your Type". |
||
![]() |
Why would you want any more Address & Mailing Labels, when you think of all those free ones that you get in the mail every other day? Well, for one thing they don't give you thousands of type styles to choose from, and they are no good to use as mailing labels they are too small. Besides, how often do you send mail to yourself? See a small sample of the typefaces you can choose, but remember almost any other font you see in my pages, or any other one you know about, is in my font collection, so ask for anything you like. |
|
![]() |
Wouldn't you like to have the ability to personalize your Wedding Invitations and other Stationery with typeface choices from thousands, rather than dozens of type styles? With my great type collection, it's the natural resource to use for expanding the range of personalizing your Wedding Stationery. As an authorized Carlson Craft products dealer, I can offer their fine lines of Wedding Stationery at substantial discounts from the normal retail prices, and give you the added service of custom type selection that goes far beyond the normal selection offered in their catalogs. I have shown the products from their Something Different ® catalog, but I can order from any of the Carlson Craft products. | |
![]() |
![]() |
|
CasualCards bring back the idea of old-time
calling cards (not those plastic things from phone companies),
so you have a personal, friendly way to tell folks who you are,
and how to get in touch with you again.
(They're great for taking notes on the back, too!) |
||
You can even have as many as three different card designs in the same order! |
|
(By the way, I'd like to see your local printer make "business cards" that look like the one above, with multiple type styles, curved text AND multiple colors and drop shadows on the clip art. I'll bet none of his "Selection of Styles" is like it at all!) |
![]() |
Our (my) type selection is huge (over 7,500 faces, all licensed), so you can find the type styles that express your personality best. (Only a true font fanatic would collect this many brand-name typefaces. You can see samples of thousands of them on this web site, since many of the samples in the Guides are from my collection, and I add more examples all the time.) | |
![]() |
||
![]() |
Have a look at my current Featured Faces. There are at least two samples for each of my type style categories. Every letter of each typeface is shown set in a series of words (not just a one-line alphabet sample) so you can see how it really looks. Each Featured Face also includes the name of the artist who designed it, and the supplier of the type. (I like giving credit where it's due.) See the new Trading Card format for type samples that I'm trying out too. You can also see many pages with even more examples of each of the five style categories: Formal, Artistic, Casual, Elegant and Strange. (I like showing off my collection whenever I can, and continuing to add new examples here gives me a chance to show a small sample of my total collection. There's still a good chance you'll see something you like here, in one or more of the styles. You can always ask to see more.) |
|
![]() |
Free Font ID Service - If you ever see a typeface anywhere that you'd like to know the name of, just send me something that shows it, or the URL of a web site that uses it, and I'll try to identify it for you and tell you where you can buy the typeface. (It's one of my hobbies; I call it "font-spotting".) Note: Most fonts seen on my site are available from MyFonts.com, which has one of the largest and easiest collections to search. |
|
![]() |
Let me be the Graphics Design Staff you wish you had at your disposal, but can't afford to have. With my huge font library and a comprehensive suite of graphics design software tools, including Adobe Systems' 'Illustrator', 'Photoshop', 'InDesign', 'Go Live' & 'PageMaker'; Strider Software's 'TypeStyler'; RayDream's 'AddDepth'; and Corel's 'Bryce' & 'Gallery', I can design and deliver files for your print shop to use in printing wedding invitations & programs, T-shirt designs, bumper sticker designs, product label designs, signs & posters, web page layouts, newsletter layouts and almost anything a Graphics Design organization (if you had one) could produce. (Go to Graphics Design Services page.) Just tell me what format your print shop needs input files, and I can e-mail them after first showing you the drafts on a custom web page I will set up for you to see the work as soon as it's done. Or, if you prefer, I can arrange the printing through my relationships with national print and label wholesalers (see Other Products, below). This is the way I coordinate the design process with you, so you can see what you're getting and have me make changes, often within minutes, rather than days.
|
|
![]() |
Even though Custom Spice Labels, CasualCards and Graphics Design Services are my specialty, my motto could be "If it needs type, I can do it!" So I can do regular business cards, wedding invitations & programs, greeting card imprinting, album pages, labels, letterhead, envelopes, posters and handbills, restaurant menus and fresh sheet inserts, even Recipe Cards printed in Just Your Type (and only YOU know what that is!). I have affiliations with several national print wholesalers and label suppliers who can provide a wide range of stock choices and the latest in print technology to produce your printed products and labels exactly to my designs. Of course, this wouldn't be my web site if it was just ordinary, so my Product List is also an ever-changing typeface sampler mixed in with a barrage of CasualCard slogans that you can improve by sending me your ideas (for slogans OR products). Now, we have Baseball scoresheets so you can go out and record your own pieces of baseball history. |
|
For those of you with your own web sites, I have WebWords. Use the Bowfin Printworks type collection to spiff up your site with WebWords distinctive typeface graphics (.gif ) captions, labels, titles and initials added to your own web designs. Just tell me the type style you want and what you want each graphic to say. (Price: $1 (US) for each .gif file.)
|
||
![]() |
I've also developed several perpetual calendar ideas that will let you use your favorite art, photos, or magazine pages and my custom mounting mat designs (you make them) and printed calendar inserts and quickly change your pictures and the dates by sliding them in place without taking apart the back of the picture, as you usually have to do in order to change the images behind the glass. It even uses standard size frames, so you can use one you have, or buy one anywhere to suit your tastes. (You'll love it! ) There's even a new smaller size calendar design for you to use on a desk or shelf. I am also working on an online Perpetual Calendar that you can use to show you any month from 1600 through 2199. Of course it will also be a typeface sampler. |
|
![]() |
Bowfin Printworks gives you the kind of printed quality you can't do yourself at home on your desktop printer, as we use professional page layout software, licensed typeface designs, and quality paper stock. I use commercial printers (for CasualCards), and wholesale print and label suppliers for other Graphics Design products. And when you order something from me, just forget the phrase "please allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery", because you'll never hear it from me. I'll do my best to get your order to you in less than a week. That's my commitment. |
|
![]() |
Relax at the Bowfin Pond -- poetry, essays, word-sketches I have written, and maybe some of my artwork. You can even get to my Bio from here. There's a lot more to life than sitting in front of these screens, you know, and I'd like to share some celebrations of life, Nature, and the world outside the computer. (OK, I do have other interests besides type, and this is my web site. Who knows, you might enjoy a few minutes here.) | |
![]() |
![]()
|
|
![]() |
Send an e-mail with your name and mailing address and what you want on your cards and get five different free sample CasualCards featuring your name and information (instead of Fred's, or Erika's, whoever they are!), as well as news about other Bowfin Printworks products and prices. | |
![]() |
If
you want to learn more about typefaces that are available, even
if it's just so you can ask me for something I haven't shown,
here is a list of links to various providers
of digital typefaces. You can browse their collections and
then ask whether I have the faces that you liked. Chances are
that I have them already, or I may have something similar (or I might want to add it to my collection, who knows?) Please note: I support ![]() |
|
![]() |
No information about you will be sold or given to anyone else, for any reason, period. Your name, address, and/or e-mail will be retained only for the purpose of customer follow-up. |
|
Please come back often, as I continually add features, new type samples and Spice Label fonts. This site will always be a work in progress. (Date of this version: 4 May 2014) Thanks for visiting! Come again.
© Michael Yanega, Bowfin Printworks, 2014 - All material is the copyrighted property of Michael Yanega and Bowfin Printworks, except for typeface names and Distributor/Foundry names, which are the property of their respective owners. TypeRight is the property of TypeRight.Org. Font Editing Software is from FontLab Ltd. |