lolita media library: typefaces in lolita fashion media

As I have begun to venture into image editing, graphic design, and digital art related to lolita fashion, I found myself interested in the fonts/typefaces that our favorite brands and lolita media use in their logos, graphics, and page layouts. Even something as simple as signing photos with a font we're used to seeing in a certain context can make it look more polished and put together, or make it look more like the GLB pages we get all nostalgic over.

So guess what I did? I spent quite a few days making a treasure map for fonts to share!

One kind of funny thing I noticed is that many brands at some point likely searched for "Victorian font" when they were trying to make a logo and used the first thing they found because I notice a lot of Victorian Linotype/ITC (Emily Temple Cute, Mary Magdalene, Physical Drop, and more). Another thing that likely happened a lot was a search for "Gothic font". A significant number of the typefaces we've become used to seeing in lolita fashion graphics and media are blackletter script (examples: older Angelic Pretty, Antique Beast, GLB title text, Innocent World, Juliette et Justine, Krad Lanrete, Metamorphose, Sheglit, others).

Links to where to get the fonts are included below. Some are free (either entirely free or free for non-commercial use only), some you have to pay for. Your computer or certain programs you have installed may already have some of these fonts pre-loaded. Disclaimer: This is not meant to be an exhaustive list. While I have done my best to educate myself on this topic, I am not a graphic designer or professionally trained digital artist so I may have used some technical terms incorrectly.



Alice and the Pirates: Asphodel, Cirque, LD Ugly Duckling, SkinArt
It seems they had custom lettering with the long flag-like serifs made especially for their logo; the above are fonts that have a similar piratey, tattoo-like aesthetic.

Angelic Pretty: Aeronaut, Blackmoor, Chipperfield and Bailey, Cooper Black, Great Circus CleanMinster, Pointedly Mad, Rheingold, Shelley Script, Wild West USA
Angelic Pretty uses a big variety of typefaces in their graphics, and quite a few are standard ones that they've added custom touches to. There are surprisingly a lot of Gothic and Old West style fonts for how cute their brand image is. Much of their very early logo lettering appears to be hand drawn, not fonts.

Baby, the Stars Shine Bright: Oliver
Similar to Victorian Linotype/ITC but without lowercase letters and a little more curly. Has a circusy feel to it.

Enchantlic Enchantilly: Kynges X NF, Magic Spell JF, Pentagraph
Their logo text is a blend of several fonts.

Gothic and Lolita Bible: AR Reisho, Arphic P Roman Mincho JIS Ultra, Belwe, Eleganto, Gotisch EF, Koku Mincho, VAG Rounded Next, Xyla
Because the GLB showcased many different substyles, a wide variety of typefaces were used to match the atmosphere of the photograph they decorated. I was particularly interested in hunting down some of the Japanese language fonts.

Haenuli: Algerian
Has a Victorian/old West/circus feel to it.

Innocent World: Des Malurs Fraktur, Klaus B Fraktur
I have not been able to identify the exact one but some Fraktur blackletter typefaces like the above have the right look.

Jane Marple: Ealing
Simple and clean.

Juliette et Justine: Black Rose
The logo text is a blackletter style font with some fancy swashes added to the tops of the Js.

Metamorphose temps de fille: Frederick Text
The current logo text is a pretty standard blackletter style font.

Moi-même-Moitié: Victoriana Regular, Jugend WF
They used a standard font as a base but added some custom decoration (for example, flames for dots).

Putumayo: DBXL Night Fever, Elektron, Venus Rising
None of these are exactly it (they may have had their logo lettering custom made) but they have similarly boxy characters with uneven line width.

Victorian Maiden: Monotype Corsiva, Marat, Brighton
Plainer, easy to read fonts. Monotype Corsiva is a standard Western language font that has been pre-installed with Windows since I was a kid and you likely already have it on your computer.

Vivienne Westwood: Raphael
They used a standard font as a base but added some custom decoration. While not exactly a lolita brand, I included Vivienne Westwood because of its massive influence on lolita fashion, even down to the font choices some brands made for their logo text. For example, Victorian Linotype/ITC (ETC, Mary Magdalene, et al) and Oliver (Baby) in particular have a similar look.



LIST OF ABOVE NAMED FONTS, ALPHABETICAL ORDER
(EN) Aeronaut, Algerian, Asphodel, Belwe, Black Rose, Blackmoor, Brighton, Chipperfield and Bailey, Cirque, Cooper Black, DBXL Night Fever, Des Malurs Fraktur, Ealing, Elektron, Frederick Text, Gotisch EF, Great Circus Clean, Jugend WFKlaus B Fraktur, Kynges X NF, LD Ugly Duckling, Magic Spell JF, Marat, Minster, Monotype Corsiva, Oliver, Pentagraph, Pointedly Mad, Raphael, Rheingold, Shelley Script, SkinArt, VAG Rounded Next, Venus Rising, Victorian Linotype/ITC, Victoriana Regular, Wild West USA, Xyla
(JP) AR Reisho, Arphic P Roman Mincho JIS Ultra, Eleganto, Koku Mincho

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Ever wonder what typeface is used in a particular graphic? The WhatTheFont tool was very helpful for me in finding many of the above (admittedly it doesn't work very well for Japanese language typefaces). Dafont, FontNavi, Monotype, and MyFonts were also helpful resources for identifying fonts. 1001 Fonts, Booth, and FreeJapaneseFonts are additional places to find fonts for your design needs.

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