two typefaces by Feòrag NicBhrìde

The Orkney Runes package contains two Runic typefaces inspired by the Viking graffiti inside the Maes Howe Chambered tomb on the Orkney Mainland. The graffiti itself has a familiar ring to it, being the sort of comment you would expect to find scrawled in a modern public convenience.

Maeshowe is the neat version of the lettering. The forms of the characters all come from within Maes Howe, except for 'p', which is based on a contemporary Scandinavian futhork. In addition, there are a couple of combination characters.

Orkahaug is a much rougher version of the same lettering, designed to look as if it has been scratched into stone. 'Orkahaug' is the Viking name for Maes Howe.

Both typefaces include a colon-style character which was widely used on runestones to separate words. This can be found on the colon key. The þ character (th) has been mapped to the letter 'X'.

Download PostScript version [MacBinary 112 Kb]
Download PostScript version [BinHex 152 Kb]

Download TrueType version [MacBinary 30 Kb]
Download TrueType version [BinHex 41 Kb]