by Ilene Strizver

Valentine’s Day is around the corner, so now’s the perfect time to express your creativity and create your own personal valentines for your friends, family and loved ones. Whether in print, the web, or email, the only bad valentine is no valentine!

Novice designers and even kids will find Valentine’s Day greetings fun and easy to create. Choose a typeface to express your message, add a heart or Cupid illustration and perhaps an ornament or two, and you’re ready to go!

Whether the tone of your valentine is romantic, sentimental, comic or nostalgic, you’ll find a type design to suit its mood. Below are some suggestions for typefaces, ornaments and image fonts that could be the perfect “soul mate” for your Valentine’s Day projects.

Typefaces

For a traditional, romantic tone, you can’t go wrong with Edwardian Script, a passionate script brimming with heart and soul.

Not ready for that kind of commitment? Perhaps Fling would be more to your liking. This upright, legible script has a clean, precise look, and is based on the famous French Ronde script.

For a more playful feel, try Curlz, a carefree design with letterforms that look like bent, twisted metal. Marguerita is the perfect choice when a merry, light-hearted touch is required. A nostalgic mood calls for Vintage, which has a sophisticated, digni?ed style reminiscent of the 1920s.

Images and Ornaments

No valentine would be complete without a picture or ornament. There are many image fonts that contain hearts (see checkerboard illustration, below). Some, such as Connectivities, have a wide variety: hearts with wings, double hearts, hearts on ?re and more.

Dave’s Raves One, Two and Three are a trio of invaluable image fonts that offer three hundred cheeky, charming and eclectic illustrations. For a ?ourish or ornament, look no further than Type Embellishments, an elegant collection of decorative delights.

Typeface and Image in One

Some typefaces come with a selection of ornaments and images. Getting your type and graphics from the same font is convenient, saves money and helps create a consistent look.

One elegant example of a combination typeface/image font is Cancione, a slender, high-waisted design with a textured contour. This all-cap typeface was inspired by fourth-century Roman inscriptions, and contains many lovely ornaments, ?ourishes and ?oral motifs.

The delightful and whimsical Gigi contains a heart, a crown, and several other images within the font. The swirly, all-cap Mo Funky Fresh has a companion image font, Mo Funky Fresh Symbols.

So light some candles, put on some romantic music and get to work! When it comes to valentines, your creation is guaranteed to be one of the most cherished sentiments of the day.

• Editor’s Note:Ilene Strizver, founder of The Type Studio, is a typographic consultant, designer and writer specializing in all aspects of typographic communication. She conducts Gourmet Typography workshops internationally. Read more about typography in her latest literary effort, Type Rules! The designer's guide to professional typography, 4th edition, published by Wiley & Sons, Inc. This article was commissioned and approved by Monotype Imaging Inc.