In your case, I found the following font Book Ends that might be perfect for your use case, but it's marked as free for personal use only. I checked her website and the licensing terms, but there's no elaboration on where NPO/501(c)(3) or your usage case falls in that spectrum between personal and commercial. That said, she has a contact form, and it never hurts to ask if you like the font and what it does, and given the lack of broader definitions of personal and commercial in her licensing. That said, the commercial desktop license is $5, which isn't free, but not expensive for a tool you could probably reuse.
I like this! I checked her page, and it seems within bounds, but I asked for permission, just in case. Next question: How the fuck do I download and use it?
If she grants you permission for usage and you use the free version of her font, you just click the download button for the font there for
Book Ends at DaFont, unpack the ZIP file and install either the OTF or the TTF font on your computer for use, but not both (either should work -
Windows install instructions/
Mac install instructions). From there, you use it (mostly) just like any other font you'd use to type and create a (portion of a) document in whatever app you want to use, like MS Word, or LibreOffice Writer, or a vector editing app like Inkscape or Illustrator, or a image editor like GIMP or Photoshop, whatever app you were going to use for creating the end product for printing (just be sure to export the document with the font as curves or embedded in the document if it's not a bitmap image for the printer, if the printer isn't from your computer directly to the toner fairies)... but to do proper framing, take note of the instructions there on the DaFont page for usage:
Special Characters:
() = bookends
[] = aloe vera bookends
+ = aloe vera between books
space or . or - = book completion
* = aloe vera plant by itself
! = empty connecting book
? = empty completed book
Those special characters are what you actually have to type to produce a complete graphic. So, if you wanted it to say "Thank You" with bookends on each side and an aloe plant in the middle, you'd actually type:
(thank+you)Or if you wanted it with aloe plants on each side and a blank space between the words, you'd actually type:
[thank-you]Or if you wanted just books but no bookends or aloe plants, you'd type:
thank-you.Or, if you wanted a book with a blank spine instead of a space between books, you'd type:
thank!you.You'll note that the linked DaFont page has a "custom preview" field you can type in to see what the font looks like in use. If you click
this link specifically, you'll see what each of those four examples would look like, and you can play around from there and mix and match to your heart's desire!
ALOE EVERYWHERE! NUTTIN' BUT BOOKS! You get the idea.
Best part is, since it's a font? You're basically creating a vector graphic with it, which'll print up nice and clean at whatever size you need.
Can you dig it?
Edit: FWIW, knowing more about what you're trying to do with "the graphic" and its intended usage, I think it'd look pretty snazzy and give you a better/cleaner/professional-ish visual end result over trying to type out "Thank You!" and pasting in clipart graphics of books underneath it. Hopefully she's down with non-profit fundraising usage for a simple thank you graphic at the bottom of the book pockets as falling into the "free" category, but if not? Sometimes it's the details, and the perfect tool has to be paid for. I can think of worse potential out of pocket prices than an Abe Lincoln, and if it goes well, you can keep using the font in other creative applications at future fundraisers!
