Tweet A suitable substitute for the Pastel font???

Hello, all.

I am making an educational video regarding silent 35mm nitrate for youtube and it is a part talkie.

I understand that Pastel was the font commonly used in the 1920s but I don't want to pay for it.

Can someone suggest a suitable substitute for Pastel that is commonly found on Windows 7 PCs?? There mus be at least 100 fonts on my PC and it is intimidating.

Which do you use on your videos??

Thank you in advance.

Silentina is the digital version of Pastel, but is a pay font, of course.

Century Gothic is a 1930s font, but similar sans serif. You might want to check out this 1912 ATF specimen book. Period ATF fonts like Cheltenham, Bodoni, Century are out there if you don't already have them installed.

Artcraft is a typeface used a great deal in the 1920s. It is the typeface seen in all the Keaton shorts, but I've seen it in films throughout the 1920s. It's free. http://fontzone.net/font-details/Artcraft/

Thanks. I don't have those on my harddrive so I'll have to go with Cabria.

Nickelodeon is my favourite go-to silent film font. You can download it (legally) for free at http://www.1001freefonts.com/nfonts3.php. They have an FAQ page about how to install them on your computer, which is not too difficult.

There are a couple of other good fonts on that website which I've used on video projects - Speedball, Gaumont, and Dr Jekyll to name a few.

[Christopher Jacobs]

Oh, no! Don't go with Cambria, almost as bad as Ariel or Helvetica. Futura would be the best completely sans-serif font, but much better would be semi-serif fonts -- not quite true serif but not really sans-serif -- or a classic serif font.

You should be able to find Newtext for free or cheap, and if you can't then use Copperplate or Copperplate Gothic, which is similar but with small caps instead of real lower-case letters. They look far more silent-movie-like than Cambria. Cooper Black, Windsor, Bookman Oldstyle, or even things like Garamond and Caslon would be much better than Cambria.

The imitatation silent-movie-style font called Nickelodeon you might also be able to find is a bit artificial but gives a reasonable approximation of the silent-movie era flavor. As noted, Speedball and Dr Jekyll are also very reminiscent of the silent era hand-lettered title cards. An excellent font if you can find it is Parsons, another authentic font used in silent movies, especially many Harold Lloyd shorts. Back in the days of Windows 3.1, I used to have it as an EPS font on a card installed for my printer, and a while back I found it on line as a free True-type font but not quite exactly the same looking.

I will post a link to my video when it is up. Almost done with it.

Can someone suggest a suitable substitute for Pastel that is commonly found on Windows 7 PCs?? There mus be at least 100 fonts on my PC and it is intimidating.

Try this:

http://www.fonts101.com/fonts/view/Unca ... tina_Movie

Norton Anti-virus says it isn't safe to download.

I just checked it with Avira (https://www.avira.com/en/index) and it didn't come up with any warnings. I don't see why a font has to be an EXE though. I've never seen a font site present the fonts as EXE's.

I just checked it with Avira (https://www.avira.com/en/index) and it didn't come up with any warnings. I don't see why a font has to be an EXE though. I've never seen a font site present the fonts as EXE's.

Where did you get that information? I downloaded it. It's not an .exe but a .zip folder which contains a .txt file and a .ttf file. Avast doesn't see any issue with it but just the same, I'm not unpacking it. I wonder what Norton is on about. I've had false positives from all my antivirus software at one time or another. I've also had antivirus s/w not block infected files.

Who knows.

I run my internet biz (sole income) from this PC. Will get to a cafe and see what happens with the laptop.

When I download it comes in as an EXE file. It might be a self-extracting zip, but I'm not trying it.

Here's just the TTF though and it's fine:
http://www.fontyukle.net/en/Silentina+Film.ttf

When I download it comes in as an EXE file. It might be a self-extracting zip, but I'm not trying it.

Here's just the TTF though and it's fine:
http://www.fontyukle.net/en/Silentina+Film.ttf

The object was to get Pastel for free. Go to Fonts.com and look up Silentina. You can download it for about $40 (maybe less). They have two variations

The object was to get Pastel for free. Go to Fonts.com and look up Silentina. You can download it for about $40 (maybe less). They have two variations

Nope. Just looking for a good substitute for free.

The object was to get Pastel for free. Go to Fonts.com and look up Silentina. You can download it for about $40 (maybe less). They have two variations

Nope. Just looking for a good substitute for free.

Here's another gree version that claims to be "Norton Safe Web"

http://www.fontyukle.net/en/Silentina+Film.ttf

The object was to get Pastel for free. Go to Fonts.com and look up Silentina. You can download it for about $40 (maybe less). They have two variations

Nope. Just looking for a good substitute for free.

Here's another gree version that claims to be "Norton Safe Web"

http://www.fontyukle.net/en/Silentina+Film.ttf" target="_blank

Yeah, that's the one I posted above. It works fine.

The finished video.