Inky ClipsHershey Gothic English font
Hershey Gothic English is a blackletter in the old English style: broad, angular letters with diamond-shaped details and ornate capitals. Like the other heavy Hershey fonts it builds weight from many strokes, so watching it draw is like watching a scribe fill in each letter.
- Type
- Single-line (stroke) font
- Style
- Decorative
- Characters
- 95 in the file
- Licence
- Hershey fonts licence
- Download
- HersheyGothic.svg
About Hershey Gothic English
What it looks like
It is decorative and slow to read, best kept to a few words.
On video
Use it for fantasy and medieval themes, gaming intros, metal and band names, certificates, and anything with a gothic or heraldic feel.
For plotters, engraving and cutting machines
On a plotter it produces dense, rich blackletter from a single fine pen, which is ideal for certificates and name plaques. Expect long plotting times: the capitals contain a lot of strokes.
Every character in Hershey Gothic English
Each letter below is drawn from the single pen line stored in HersheyGothic.svg, exactly as a plotter would draw it.
Capitals (26)
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- X
- Y
- Z
Lowercase (26)
- a
- b
- c
- d
- e
- f
- g
- h
- i
- j
- k
- l
- m
- n
- o
- p
- q
- r
- s
- t
- u
- v
- w
- x
- y
- z
Numbers (10)
- 0
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
Punctuation and symbols (33)
- !
- "
- #
- $
- %
- &
- '
- (
- )
- *
- +
- ,
- -
- .
- /
- :
- ;
- <
- =
- >
- ?
- @
- [
- \
- ]
- ^
- _
- `
- {
- |
- }
- ~
-
Letters Inky Clips adds (74)
Not in the font file. Inky Clips draws these on video from the font’s own letters: adding the accent or bar, dropping the dot for ı, or writing ß as “ss”.
- Ä
- Æ
- Ç
- Ó
- Ö
- Ø
- Ü
- ß
- ä
- æ
- ç
- ó
- ö
- ø
- ü
- Ā
- ā
- Ą
- ą
- Ć
- ć
- Č
- č
- Đ
- đ
- Ē
- ē
- Ė
- ė
- Ę
- ę
- Ğ
- ğ
- Ģ
- ģ
- Ħ
- ħ
- Ī
- ī
- Į
- į
- İ
- ı
- Ķ
- ķ
- Ļ
- ļ
- Ł
- ł
- Ń
- ń
- Ņ
- ņ
- Œ
- œ
- Ś
- ś
- Ş
- ş
- Š
- š
- Ū
- ū
- Ų
- ų
- Ź
- ź
- Ż
- ż
- Ž
- ž
- Ə
- ə
- ẞ
Write with Hershey Gothic English
Type your own words and watch them write themselves over a clip. Switch fonts and ink colours to compare.
The clip shows “Here be dragons” written in Gothic.
Ink: White
Letters for other languages
- Latvian: the font file doesn't include ā č ē ģ ī ķ ļ ņ š ū ž Ā Č Ē Ģ Ī Ķ Ļ Ņ Š Ū Ž, but Inky Clips draws all of them on video from the font’s own letters.
- Lithuanian: the font file doesn't include ą č ę ė į š ų ū ž Ą Č Ę Ė Į Š Ų Ū Ž, but Inky Clips draws all of them on video from the font’s own letters.
- Polish: the font file doesn't include ą ć ę ł ń ó ś ź ż Ą Ć Ę Ł Ń Ó Ś Ź Ż, but Inky Clips draws all of them on video from the font’s own letters.
- Turkish: the font file doesn't include ç ğ ı İ ö ş ü Ç Ğ Ö Ş Ü, but Inky Clips draws all of them on video from the font’s own letters.
- German: the font file doesn't include ä ö ü ß Ä Ö Ü, but Inky Clips draws all of them on video from the font’s own letters.
If you plot or engrave with the downloaded file, only the letters in the file are available.
Where it comes from
Dr. Allen V. Hershey drew the Hershey fonts at the U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory in Dahlgren, Virginia, and published them in 1967, among the first typefaces made for computers. Every letter is stored as pen strokes rather than an outline, because they were drawn for the vector plotters and screens of the day. They have travelled through plotter software, CAD and engraving tools ever since, and Inkscape's Hershey Text extension still uses them.
Licence and download
Hershey Gothic English is free under the Hershey fonts licence. Free to use for anything, including commercial work, as long as the attribution below is kept with the font.
The SVG version comes from Inkscape's Hershey Text extension (Windell H. Oskay, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories) and the inkscapestrokefont project.
The Hershey Fonts were originally created by Dr. A. V. Hershey while working at the U. S. National Bureau of Standards. The format of the font data in this distribution was originally created by James Hurt, Cognition, Inc.
An SVG font. Load it in Inkscape's Hershey Text extension (Extensions › Text › Hershey Text) to set text as single pen lines for a plotter, laser or engraver.
Fonts like Hershey Gothic English
Want a clip of your own words being written? Try the handwriting animation generator, or browse all fonts.