Papyrus
Papyrus is one of those fonts that are far too popular for their own good. I cannot for instance recount the number of times it is being (mis)used for copyright notices or titles in digital pictures. Some people even use it for PowerPoint presentations. That is why it is one of the typefaces that made it to my list of interesting fonts.
What does Papyrus look like?
Papyrus Regular
Papyrus Bold
Papyrus Bold Italic
Papyrus Italic
What do you use Papyrus for?
Its handcrafted and irregular, rough look as well as its high horizontal strokes give Papyrus a distinct look that lends itself well for display type. It is especially suitable for anything that needs to look a bit antique. Unfortunately this typeface has been overused in the past decade so many people are currently bored with it.
The history of Papyrus
Chris Costello, a designer and illustrator, created Papyrus using a calligraphy pen and textured paper. His intent was to create a typeface that looked as if written on papyrus 2000 years ago. Letraset released the typeface in 1983. It is now owned by ITC.
Trivia
Papyrus has its fans, like this one or here, but it also is featured in quite a few rants,such as this one. On this page Chris Costello, its designer, admits that the font should have come with this disclaimer: “May be habit forming. Not responsible for overdose or inappropriate use of this product.”
Other sources of information
I haven’t found any extensive sources of information about Papyrus yet. Maybe there simply isn’t that much to tell about the font?
Loading ...
Another rant at http://xkcd.com/590/
How did you get BOLD/Italic papyrus? My mac only comes with regular papyrus and I’ve been searching high and low for a bold version! Help!
I’m with Whitney. Where can I find bold and italic versions of Papyrus for my Mac? I’m using Scrivener to write a novel and Papyrus is so easy on my eyes but I do need italic especially.
ITC Papyrus does not include bold or italic faces. I created the samples with my previous PC using Photoshop. That application doesn’t allow the creation of fake or faux fonts, so I must have had a version of Papyrus installed that included bold and italic, without realizing I wasn’t using the official release. Unfortunately I have no way of finding out which vendor created the Papyrus look-alike that was installed on my previous system. Sorry about the confusion.
You can apply the BOLD command to Papyrus in MS Word under Mac OS 10.5 and 10.6. I can’t figure out how to do it in Pages, though, and that’s very unfortunate, since I use it for my letterhead.