What are some classic decorative typography techniques?

Question

I'm working on a website, and I'm using a drop cap/initial letter for the text body. I find this technique to be very eye-catching and beautiful to look at. Does anyone know any similar simple, preferably traditional (before we had computers to do graphic design), typographical techniques that I can use either for this project or for the future?

Here are examples of images that use these:

It does NOT have to be these drop caps and fleurons specifically, and aesthetic and classy techniques are fine.

Thanks!

Side note: If anyone knows how to style these in HTML and CSS, that would be useful, but not necessary.

EDIT: Another example is a Fleuron, so elements such as these and drop caps are what I'm looking for.

Answer 1

The running foot was common in traditional typography and can be useful as well as decorative. Two different use cases are:

• to provide a brief summary of that page’s contents.
• to give the first word of the following page.

It has fallen out of fashion because pages often aren’t set manually anymore and implementing a running foot means more work than in metal type (among other reasons).

Actually, your example from TexSX (the bible page) uses the latter technique: the en on the bottom right side of the page is the first word of the next page.

I guess it is of limited value for websites, though. Edit: I realized that the running foot is actually used on websites quite frequently: e. g. in articles that spread over multiple pages. See this example in the German newspaper Zeit Online (Times Online): Sie sind gefeuert (You’re fired).

The article is presented on two pages. On the bottom of the first page, there’s a link to the second page: nächste Seite (next page). Next to that button, the heading of the second page is shown: Neue Kommunikation mit alten Strukturen (New communication using old structures). This is a typical example of a running foot in an online environment.

The frame is another typical decoration that has lost its place in everyday print, but I can imagine it could very well be applied to online content. Here’s an example (also from TexSX):

One of the best ways (if not the best^tm) to “decorate” your text probably is to give it the right amount of space on the screen, with sufficient white space around it. You could follow a traditional page layout to evoke a “classical” feeling.