Cloister Black Font

Cloister Black Font

This version is Free for commercial use

About Cloister Black Font

Cloister Black Font free by Dieter Steffmann, is a clean-cut Blackletter type, that was originally designed by the American type designer, Morris Fuller Benton, in 1904. It is the font used for the Thug Life logo.

For other blackletter fonts, see Chomsky and Killigrew.

Cloister Black (Kinsley/ATF, 1904, available from Bitstream). According to McGrew, Cloister Black (or Cloister Text) was introduced by ATF in 1904. Its design is generally credited to Joseph W. Phinney, of ATF’s Boston foundry, but some authorities give some or all of the credit to Morris Benton.

It is an adaptation of Priory Text, an 1870s version of Caslon Text, modernizing and eliminating the irregularities of that historic face, and making it one of the most popular versions of Old English.

Flemish Black, introduced at the same time, has the same lowercase and figures but a different set of capitals. Note the alternate V and W, and tied ct. ATF also makes a double lowercase l, while Monotype makes f-ligatures and diphthongs.