Goudy Handtooled was done in 1922 and is a shaded version of Goudy Bold. Some authorities credit the design to Charles A. Becker and others to Morris Fuller Benton and Wadsworth Packer.

Alf R. Becker was a noted sign painter, designer and the creator of hundreds of unique alphabets which were published in the trade magazine Signs of the Times during the 1930s through the 1950s. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media [and who is also the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati], Jeff Levine received some reference material on Becker's work. Becker displayed many of his type styles within decorative panels—a popular trend in the days when signs were hand-lettered. Using the reference material as a guide, Jeff has re-drawn twenty-six sign panels for adaptation to digital print work. While the designs in themselves are not thoroughly unique to Alf Becker, he has left behind some tangible examples of how sign painters embellished their lettering work. With the use of complementary colors and tones, these panels—joined with vintage lettering - classically recreate the warm and attractive advertising of years ago.

Download PDF Specimen See Blacker and Blacker Sans , the perfect matching companions of Blackest. Blackest is an inverse contrast wedge serif typeface family, designed by Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli as a development of the Blacker typeface designed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini. The classical skeleton and sharp edges of the original have been kept while bringing the contrast of the typeface in the realm of the so called “italian” or reverse-contrast typefaces. The result is a typeface family that manages to be quirky but classical, and playful without losing elegance. With its exuberance and six weights of eye-catching proportions, Blackest is perfect for display use: editorial & magazine design, poster design and logo development - but to allow its usage as a for typesetting of longer texts a text variant in two weights has been developed, with less contrast, looser spacing, and high readability. Blackest features an extended character set that covers over 220 languages using the Latin alphabet, as well as Russian Cyrillic. Open type features include small caps, positional figures, alternate letter forms, stylistic sets, arrows and extra punctuation and discretionary ligatures.

Mocombo JNL is a slightly modified version of one of the numerous alphabets created by the late Alf R. Becker for Signs of the Times Magazine during the period of the 1930s through the 1950s. Tod Swormstedt of ST Media—who is also the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio—supplied Jeff Levine a wealth of source material from which this font is derived. The angular style of this typeface was originally referred to as “German Poster Lettering” by Becker, but it can represent many styles from 1940s night clubs to African safaris and just about anything in-between.

Karin's free reinterpretation of the early Renaissance Lombardic tradition, in two different versions. In the upper case the fill is blacker and has a straight pattern with diamond elements; in the lower case the fill is thinner with more white space and has a wavy pattern with rounded elements.

Lettering artist Alf Becker suggested that this typeface was suitable for postcard work, and we agree (although it's suitable for a great many other uses, as well). It packs a lot of information in a limited amount of horizontal space.

Alf Becker called this offering "Rounded Modern Bold." The geometric forms, strong contrasts and unexpected turns of this serious Art Deco typeface command attention. Both versions of the font include the 1252 Latin and 1250 CE character sets (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Sign and Design JNL is a casual brush alphabet modeled after an Alf R. Becker design that appeared in Signs of the Times Magazine. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media and the American Sign Museum for providing the reference material to make this font.

Legendary lettering artist Alf Becker called his original offering “Aristocrat”; this version is a little less pretentious, but still suitably snooty. Graceful and elegant, but with a few amusing turns. Both versions of this font contain the complete Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

Film Noir JNL is a classic Art Deco Alphabet from the brush of the late master sign painter Alf R. Becker, and appeared in Signs of the Times Magazine. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media and the American Sign Museum for providing the reference material to make this font.

Hexide JNL was modeled and modified from an original design created by the late sign artist Alf R. Becker for Signs of the Times® Magazine. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Publications, Inc. and the American Sign Museum of Cincinnati, Ohio for providing the reference material used to make this font.

Beginning in January, 1932, Becker, at the request of then-editor E. Thomas Kelly, supplied SIGNS of the Times magazine’s new Art and Design section with an alphabet a month, a project predicted to last only two years. Misjudging the popularity of the “series”, it instead ran for 27 years, ending finally two months before Becker’s death in 1959, for a grand total of 320 alphabets, a nearly perfect, uninterrupted run. In late 1941, almost ten years after the first alphabet was published, 100 of those alphabets were compiled and published in bookform under the title, “100 Alphabets”, by Alf R. Becker. And so, as published in August, 1937, The Fontry presents the truly "modern" version of Becker’s 187th alphabet, Moderne Caps, complete with OpenType features and Central European language support.

Derived from a photograph Rian Hughes took in Hong Kong, the Roadkill family of typefaces is a literal interpretation of rough and worn road lettering. The original provided almost all of the key character shapes, with the others being designed to keep the unique hand painted feel intact. Most of the letters have alternate versions provided. This font works equally well at wider letterspacing settings. Roadkill Alternates provides curved versions of the 2 and the S, a G with higher crossbar, and less worn versions of several other characters. The heavy version packs even more gritty wallop in a non-condensed and blacker weight. Roadkill Heavy packs even more gritty wallop in a non-condensed and blacker weight. Use in conjuction with the original Roadkill and Roadkill Alternates. A set of arrows and other road symbols again taken directly from tarmac to Mac, thus preserving the worn and eroded appearance of the original characters is also part of the Roadkill family.

Tradewinds JNL is based on one of many innovative alphabets designed by the late Alf R. Becker for Signs of the Times magazine between the 1930s and 1950s. Thanks go to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media (who is also the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio) for supplying the reference material used to make this font.

A collision between fine, fat caps developed by legendary letterer Alf Becker, and a squirrely, curly, uncredited lowercase uncovered by artist Leslie Cabarga produced this merry romp through the alphabet. The Postscript and Truetype versions contain a complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252); in addition, the Opentype version supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages as well.

Here's an amalgam of letterforms from two giants of the handlettering pantheon: an uppercase based on the work of Mike Stevens, and a lowercase based on the work of Alf Becker. The two work in perfect harmony to create warm, friendly and engaging headlines. Both versions contain the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets.

Used Cars JNL is based on one of the many unique alphabets created by the late Alf R. Becker for Signs of the Times magazine from the 1930s through the 1950s. Special thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media (who is also the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio) for providing the reference material for this design

Roadblock JNL is the solidified and slanted version of Patriotica JNL --a stars and stripes font based on lettering by the late Alf R. Becker as commissioned by Signs of the Times® magazine. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Publications, Inc. and the American Sign Museum in Cincinati, Ohio for providing source material for use as a work model.

Nightspot JNL was modeled from one of many display alphabets created by the late sign painter and lettering expert Alf Becker. His work has graced the pages of Signs of the Times® magazine for decades. Special thanks to Tod Swormstedt of the American Sign Museum and ST Publications, Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio for providing the source material for this typeface.

Buffet Script is based on fantastic calligraphy by Alf Becker, arguably the greatest American sign lettering artist of all time. The Alf Becker series of nameless alphabets published by Sign of the Times magazine in 1941 has attracted letter digitizers for a few years now, so it’s really a wonder that a few of those alphabets are still in the non-digital realm. It is understandable, though, that the basis for Buffet Script was not digitally attempted until now. The page presenting this alphabet shows a jungle of letters running into each others and swashes intertwining. The massive amount of work involved in digitizing such lettering, where scanning is nowhere near being an option, is quite obvious at a mere glance. If anyone was going to commit this particular alphabet to a digital form, it would have to be redrawn stroke by stroke and curve by curve on the computer. And don't we love a challenge! But seriously, the challenge was not the main attraction. In a way, the Becker approach to lettering is so far from digital that the imagination is almost forced to work out possibilities and letter combinations to solve problems presented by the scant showings in that magazine. After a few imaginative visualizations, the digital potential becomes clear in the mind, and the eye and hand follow. The result with Whomp (another Alf Becker-inspired work) was an enormous font with a lot of alternates and ligatures. With Buffet Script the imaginative process was no different, but the result particularly shines here, because this is some of the most fascinating flowing calligraphy ever seen. Calligraphy is where the accountability of all the little extra touches, such as alternates and swashes and ligatures, is raised to a higher level than in most other type categories. Buffet Script’s OpenType programming contains discretionary ligatures, stylistic and contextual alternates, interacting with each other to allow the composition of just the right word or sentence. This font is best used where lush elegance is one of the design’s requirements.

Here’s another offering based on the work of Alf Becker, long-time contributor to Signs of the Times magazine. This only comes from the 1940s, and is a light and bouncy single-stroke face that’s sure to pep up any project it graces. This font contains the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

This picturesque, beautiful German Blackletter typeface was originally released by Benjamin Becker Succ, Frankfurt am Main, then named ?K�nstlergotisch?. Ralph M. Unger redesigned, digitally remastered and completed the font based on old catalogues/specimen. In honor of the famous Cranach family, German artists in medieval times, we renamed the font after them. The shadowed version was added for even more eye-catching purposes, e.g. in headlines.

Although not credited, the inspiration for this typeface, originally called "Dancer", has all the earmarks of the work of legendary lettering artist Alf Becker. Creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky, but not in the least ooky, this monocase face is just what the doctor ordered; Dr Frankenstein, that is. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

Karaoke JNL is one of the many alphabets created by the late Alf R. Becker that was showcased in Signs of the Times magazine from the 1930s through the 1950s. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media (and who is the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio) for providing Jeff Levine the research material from which this font design was modeled.

General Chang JNL is one of a number of fonts redrawn by Jeff Levine from the creative output of the late Alf R. Becker. Becker's alphabets were a monthly feature of Signs of the Times Magazine from the 1930s through the 1950s. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media (who also is the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio) for the resource material.

The first Century typeface was cut in 1894 by Linn Boyd Benton in conjunction with T L DeVinne for the Century Magazine. It was a blacker, more readable face than the type previously used. Morris Fuller Benton designed the Century Expanded version in 1900 for American Type Founders to meet the Typographical Union Standard of the day. The 'expansion' was in the vertical plane. Century Expanded is a useful font family for text setting in magazines, books, presentations and newsletters.

Zuume Soft is a high-impact, condensed sans serif family with a soft touch. A sister to Zuume, this version features round corners for a friendlier appearance. The lighter weights give a sharp, technical feel while the bold, blacker weights can be tightly spaced and stacked for a strong visual punch. The notched and extended ink traps add both function and aesthetic interest. The strong and sturdy design makes it ideal for eye-catching headlines, branding, packaging, sports, logos, and more.

Here's a retooling of the Art Deco classic Novel Gothic, designed by Morris Fuller Benton and Charles H. Becker for American Type Founders in 1929. We've added a little sparkle to this classic with a reflected-highlight treatment, to help create attractive and commanding headlines. Both versions include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, as well as localization for Moldovan and Romanian.

Meroe from Peter Becker: a warm script with a very dynamic touch Meroe is a warm, calligraphic script with a very dynamic touch. The many little details of the rugged stroke direction show to advantage in large font sizes. Nonetheless, Meroe is also very readable in small sizes. The font feels at home everywhere, where a personal note is required, as for example, in invitations and greetings cards , but of course also in packaging design.

Alf Becker was a talented sign writer and a prolific contributor of unique alphabets to Signs of the Times magazine. More than one hundred of his designs were showcased in monthly installments with each new issue of the publication. One in particular is a casual, free form sans serif design which has been recreated digitally as Casual Signage JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Publications for providing the reference material for this font.