The 1939 French publication “Modèles de lettres modernes par Georges Léculier” ( “Models of Modern Letters by Léculier”) presented some unique and stylized type designs with Art Deco influence. One such example is an abstract modular alphabet constructed of rectangles and circles. This is now available as Modular Deco JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

The hand lettered words “Pere Noel” under a vintage French magazine’s photo of Santa with two bikini-clad beauties inspired the digital version of this quirky, condensed type style. Unusually Deco JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions From Wikipedia: “Père Noël “Papi Christmas”, sometimes called ‘Papa Noël’ (“Daddy Christmas”), is a legendary gift-bringer at Christmas in France and other French-speaking areas, identified with the Father Christmas and/or Santa Claus of English-speaking territories. Though they were traditionally different, all of them are now the same character, with different names, and the shared characteristics of a red outfit, workshop at the North Pole/Lapland, and a team of reindeer.”

Art Deco Arabic is a sans-serif Headline font. Designed by Naghi Naghashian as a sigle weight. Art Deco Arabic is reminiscence of Art Deco style, at the beginning of 20th century. The Latin part is a new design inspired from Art Deco style. It is extremely legible even in very small size. This font is a contribution to modernisation the Arabic typography, gives the font design of Arabic letters real typographic arrangement und provides more typographic flexibility. Art Deco Arabic supports Arabic, Persian ( Farsi ), Urdu and Latin.It also includes proportional and tabular numerals for the supported languages. Art Deco Arabic design fulfills the following needs: A Explicitly crafted for use in electronic media fulfils the demands of electronic communication. B Suitability for multiple applications. Gives the widest potential acceptability. C Extreme legibility not only in small sizes, but also when the type is filtered or skewed, e.g., in Photoshop, InDesgine or Illustrator. ArtDecoArabic’s simplified forms may be artificial obliqued in InDesign or Illustrator, without any loss in quality for the effected text. D An attractive typographic image. Art Deco Arabic was developed for multiple languages and writing conventions. Art Deco Arabic supports Arabic, Persian,Urdu and Latin. It also includes proportional and tabular numerals for the supported languages. E The highest degree of calligraphic grace and the clarity of geometric typography.

a art deco naive experimental typeface

Normally, a short paragraph or two on this page tells the backstory to a font design. In this particular case, that story has been lost to time. Whatever the original source – whether a vintage bit of typography or an original idea – the beginnings of this font lay unfinished for quite a while as it was perceived to duplicate another previous release. However, after recently checking a sample of the design against other Jeff Levine Fonts, it’s reasonably certain this type face may have similar characteristics, but can stand on its own merit. That said, Clean Deco JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The namesake for this type design was the dust jacket for the 1926 book “Revelry”. A classic Art Deco thick-and-thin design, Revelry Deco JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Geometa is based on Paul Renners Futura Classic, the one that he designed before he had to soften it to make it more appealing to the broad public. I thought the normal rounded fonts needed a decorative sister. Here they are! Your type-designer for decorative solutions, Gert Wiescher

The 1934 Dick Powell-Ruby Keeler-Joan Blondell movie musical "Dames" gave us the classic song "I Only Have Eyes for You", but the sheet music for the song had the movie title hand lettered in a multi-line Art Deco sans serif design that just begged to be turned into a type font. From these few letters now comes Deco Multiline JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The hand lettered title on the 1943 sheet music for "This Love of Mine" formed the basis for Deco Style JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Art Deco turned mundane objects into graceful, sensual works of art, with a nod towards the opulent and extreme. Art Deco sought to build upon the elements of Modern Art movements by focusing on the principal object and removing the extraneous elements found in the Victorian era and in Art Nouveau. The concept of "form following function" and the technological advances of the early 20th century played a very important role in defining the direction of Art Deco. Popular images included stylized people, svelte animals, tall buildings, sleek vehicles and exotic scenes. Art Deco typographic designers were also inspired by these diverse themes. P22's Art Deco font set shows the influence of a cross section of some of the various European and American Art Deco styles.

Tall and narrow in stature, elegant by design and Art Deco in style, Deco Elongated JNL is a wonderful type design for setting long lines of copy in less space. The retro elements of this font conjure up images of fine fashions, fancy nightclubs and big band music…

Monoline Deco JNL is a thin, elegant typeface that is reminiscent of the Art Deco Streamline influence of the 1930s and 1940s, complete with angular and truncated characters.

This casual, carefree face is based on a showcard alphabet presented by Cecil Wade in his Manual of Lettering. Its extrabold weight, sketchy styling and playful letterforms make it perfect for attention-getting headlines. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 Latin and Unicode 1250 Central European character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

Deco Template JNL is a font made from the inline portion of Stationer JNL, which itself was based on the hand lettered 1938 sheet music title for the official Coast Guard Marching Song "Semper Paratus" "(Always Ready)". Resembling a drafting template with a square, modular look, this type design is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Hand lettering used on the packaging of a space-themed rubber stamp toy set is the basis for Space Deco JNL. Blending the classic thick-and-thin line weights of the Art Deco style with sharply angled cross strokes evoked a sense of movement and "future" in this unique lettering design.

Hand lettering isn’t a perfect art form, and this is why it often has an appeal over formal typesetting. Individual interpretation can lead to variations in style, character shape and overall design concept. Case in point: The hand-drawn title for the1933 sheet music “Why Can’t This Night Go on Forever” is a simple Art Deco sans, however it mixes character widths and even angles the letter ‘C’ in a nonconventional way. Deco Design JNL is the digital version of this alphabet, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Deco Edition JNL gets its inspiration from the hand lettered title of a 1943 anthology of musical compositions for schools entitled "Junior Laurel Songs - Teacher's Edition", and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Inspired by a retro Art Deco poster as well as many of the true classic Art Deco type designs of the 1930s and 1940s, Deco Revisited JNL is a bold, black, stencil-influenced design with no counters. Although being a contemporary design, its use in any retro project will truly evoke a feeling for the “streamline” era. Deco Revisited JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Deco Banner JNL is composed of reverse lettering on a black background with Art Deco end caps. To create a banner, first type the plus sign for the left end cap, then your text. To add a space between words, use the bar on the shift position of the backslash key then continue on. To add the right end cap, type the equal sign.

On the sheet music cover of the 1931 song "When the Autumn Leaves of Life Begin to Fall", the title is hand-lettered using a round tipped nib pen. The combination of both an Art Deco lettering style and the rounded ends of the characters creates an exquisite, yet simple type design digitally preserved as Deco Roundpoint JNL; available in both regular and oblique versions.

The Charles Bluemlein Script Collection is an intriguing reminder of the heady days of hand lettering and calligraphy in the United States. From the early 1930s through World War II, there were about 200 professional hand letterers working in New York City alone. This occupation saw its demise with the advent of photo lettering, and after digital typography, became virtually extinct. The odd way in which the Bluemlein scripts were assembled and created - by collecting different signatures and then building complete alphabets from them - is a fascinating calligraphic adventure. Because the set of constructed designs looked nothing like the original signatures, fictitious names were assigned to the new script typefaces. The typeface styles were then showcased in Higgins Ink catalogs. Alejandro Paul and Sudtipos bring the Bluemlein scripts back to life in a set of expanded digital versions, reflecting the demands of today’s designer. Extreme care has been taken to render the original scripts authentically, keeping the fictitious names originally assigned to them by Bluemlein.

The 1930s-era French alphabet collection entitled “La Lettre Dans le Decor & La Publicite Modernes” (which somewhat translates to “The Letter in Modern Decor and Advertising”) has page after page of attractive and unusual type interpretations. One particular Art Deco design puts an entirely different spin on the classic “rounded terminals and geometric design”. Unusual character shapes add a fresh new/old take to the “Streamline Movement”. The aptly-named Deco Francois JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Toward the end of the 1920s, Art Deco influences were starting to creep into modern design. The hand lettered title on the cover of the1928 sheet music for “Fascinatin’ Vamp” not only embraced the new Deco movement, but sent it on a wild typographic ride. Letters of mixed thicknesses and stylings made up the two word title, and this unusual group of letter shapes became the inspiration for Free Form Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

From the title on the sheet music for the 1935 composition "Along Tobacco Road" comes Deco Triline JNL in both regular and oblique versions. Reminiscent of Broadway if done as a neon sign, this typeface virtually shouts about the Manhattan nightlife of the 1930s. For maximum readability, space the letters a bit wider than normal.

In their book "Lettering of Today" by W. Ben and Ed C. Hunt, an Art Deco "thick and thin" alphabet with some stylized characters (which leaned a lot toward a calligraphic style) stood out from the rest. This is now available as Stylized Deco JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Although the Art Deco movement is generally attributed to the 1930s and 1940s, a number of design influences were showing up during the late 1920s in what is referred to as the Art Nouveau period. The Dutch illustrator Anton Kurvers’ hand lettering on the front cover of the (1927) magazine “Het Vlaamsche Volstooneel” clearly shows the clean lines and Avant Garde geometrics that foreshadow Art Deco. This attractive pre-Deco lettering has been recreated digitally as Dutch Deco JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

In an online edition of Modern Screen Magazine for March of 1936, many of the article headlines were set in a bold, slab serif inline font which (although possessing some Art Deco traits) could double as a sports font. This is now available as Team Deco JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Stencil Deco JNL was an experimental modification of Jeff Levine's Cardboard Cutouts JNL font, originally designed from an authentic stencil source circa the 1950s. This version is a fusion of the Art-Deco style and a modern, trendy approach to the stroke weights.

Every face tells a story but this font is 77 stories high (1,046 feet with antenna included)! A lofty companion to Empire State Gothic , Empire State Deco is a tall, stately font containing four different styles, sometimes contradictory, united by the desire to be modern. Those familiar with the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes will notice a post-postmodernism combined with the fine craftsmanship and rich materials for which those awfully nice chaps at Comicraft are known. During its Art Deco heyday, Comicraft represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress -- this new font recaptures those halcyon days in letter form.

a fifities style font

The model for Deco Moderne JNL was the hand lettered title on the sheet music cover of "Did You Ever See A Dream Walking" (from the 1933 Paramount musical "Sitting Pretty" starring Jack Oakie, Jack Haley and Ginger Rogers). The typeface is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The movie poster for the 1936 film “Dodsworth” had its title hand lettered in a thin Art Deco sans serif with a mix of both stylized and squared characters. Expanding on this unusual lettering combination, the final results became Drama Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Deco Neue Wilde is a filter font based on Deco, an original Open Window classic. It sort of speaks for itself but it reminds me of a lava lamp and the countless shapes that you could waste time watching appear.

a naive typeface from Art Deco ages

A hand lettered Art Deco ‘stencil’ design used in various ads for “Holiday” and other Pathé films was found in the July 22, 1930 issue of “The Film Daily”. Similar in style to Futura Black and other like designs, it is now available as Deco Holiday JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

A quirky and unusual Art Deco monoline typeface can be found within the pages of the Esterbrook Drawlet Pen instruction book [circa the 1940s]. Drawlet was the direct competitor to Speedball Lettering pen nibs. This unusual type design of varying width and character shapes is now available digitally as Oddly Deco JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Family Deco JNL was inspired by the bold Art Deco hand lettering of the movie credits for the 1936 Laurel and Hardy comedy “Our Relations”, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The hand lettered word ‘puzzles’ from the box cover of a 1940s set of metal “connected” puzzle pieces manufactured by the A.C. Gilbert Company was the initial typographic model, but some additions and changes were made. Instead of the right side of the ‘P’ being a semi-circle, it was changed to a more conservative ‘’squared’ look. After drawing out all of the necessary glyphs, the overall height of the characters was extended to make the letters and numbers appear taller and narrower. The end result is Narrow Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

This decorative, scalloped thick-and-thin Art Deco type design is one of the many inspirations found within the pages of the 1934 French lettering book “L'Art du Tracé Rationnel de la Lettre”. Now in digital format, Fancy Deco JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.