A mid-1950s hand lettered ad for Stenso Lettering Guides provided the inspiration for Stencil Company JNL, now available in both regular and oblique versions. The Stenso Lettering Company of Baltimore, Maryland pioneered easy-to-use and inexpensive lettering devices with guide holes for accurate spacing. Originally designed by a school teacher (Ruth Libauer Hormats) around 1940, the company was family run until it was sold in 1962 to Ottenheimer Publishers. They in turn sold the line to the Dennison Manufacturing Company, and it was discontinued in the 1980s after Dennison merged with Avery.

My affection for Slab Serifs began in the early 1960s in Kansas City with Rob Roy Kelly and his fabulous collection of wood type. In the 1970s tried to re-create a Nebiolo Egiziano for Roger Black. Again for Roger, in the 1980s I designed a Slab Serif logo for Newsweek Magazine. Finally, in 2003, designed the Sutro Family. There were things I didn't like about it, so when I did Version 2 for Open Type, I changed it around a little, making it a much nicer Sutro.

The range of subtle differences in the many different sized lettering stencils of the 1940s and 1950s allows for a wonderful library of authentic-looking stencil fonts. Storage JNL is another Roman (serif) type design by Jeff Levine and modeled from a 1950s stencil set.

Figuratika with its cut out letters is a bold geometric Art Deco inspired stencil font with a retro 1920 1930 feeling. It was designed as a display font and is best for shorter texts, titles, logos, posters etc. Figuratika has multilingual support for most European languages.

Lydian is Warren Chappell’s almost calligraphic sanserif, designed for ATF in 1938. Lydian Cursive, done by Chappell in 1940, is much freer and more calligraphic.

Cardboard Cutouts JNL is a blocky sans serif font re-drawn from some old "kiddie" stencils from the 1950s or 1960s acquired by Jeff Levine.

Based on the lettering used on Alan Turing’s famous code-breaking machine at Bletchley Park, the “Bombe”, and the subsequent British answer to the German Enigma machine, the Typex. Research done at Bletchley Park on their restored and antique machines provided the inspiration. The unusual shapes for the capitals have all been retained - the square O, the monospaced characters and other eccentricities that make it unique. This reference material was then extended to the numerals (which did not exist in the original) and a full international character complement. The initial design of the bombe was produced in 1939 at the UK Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park by Alan Turing, with an important refinement devised in 1940 by Gordon Welchman. It was based on a device that had been designed in 1938 in Poland at the Biuro Szyfrów (Cipher Bureau) by cryptologist Marian Rejewski, and known as the "cryptologic bomb" (Polish: bomba kryptologiczna). The Bombe was used to break the German Enigma code on a daily basis, and was a vital part of the Allied war effort. The British “Typex" (alternatively, Type X or TypeX) machines were an adaptation of the commercial German Enigma with a number of enhancements that greatly increased its security. It was used from 1937 until the mid-1950s, when other more modern military encryption systems came into use.

A new font inspired by vintage hand-painted paper signs. The Doorbuster Collection is based on retro hand-painted paper signs primarily seen in grocery stores from the 1920s through the 1970s. We meticulously hand-drew each font, modeling the spacing and uneven baseline found in vintage sign painting. The purposely organic ascenders and descenders, along with a huge set of ligatures/contextual alternates to avoid the same letters repeating when paired, give it a real hand-lettered look. Doorbuster Plug is perfect for both vintage-inspired and contemporary marketing, branding, and packaging designs. It's a classic workhorse font from the 1950s thru 1970s. Check out a few of the samples included in the thumbnails to see what can be done with it.

Viareggio is a city in Northern Tuscany, Italy. Viareggio is famous for its carnival and its mascot, the clown Burlamacco (designed by Uberto Bonetti in 1930). Viareggio font was based on the hand lettering found on a 1931 poster, advertising the carnival. Viareggio font comes with extensive language support.

Reverberation JNL and its slanted counterpart are a throwback to the 1970s and 1980s when fonts featuring horizontal white lines of varying widths implied movement or activity.

Welcome Home JNL gets its inspiration from metal letters and numbers affixed to homes, posts and mailboxes in the 1920s and 1930s. The block style of lettering that was silk screened onto enameled rectangles of steel was especially popular during that time period. This font has a limited character set.

Performer JNL, is a typeface re-drawn from condensed hand lettering found on a piece of vintage sheet music. Fairly basic in style, there are still some hints of the Art Deco influence that permeated the 1930s and 1940s art, design and typography. Available in both regular and oblique versions.

Triborough JNL is the heavier-weight version of Wingate JNL, a narrow, all-caps font from Jeff Levine. Evoking the feel of 1930s and 1940s store and architectural signs, use Triborough JNL along with its counterpart for a nice dual-weight contrast... or by itself for an elegant Art Deco look.

Lydian is Warren Chappell’s almost calligraphic sanserif, designed for ATF in 1938. Lydian Cursive, done by Chappell in 1940, is much freer and more calligraphic. Life is a journey.

Fancy Antique Display is a uppercase display font inspired by French decorative alphabets from the 1940's and 1950's. Perfect for headlines, logos and everything above the body.

Record Jacket JNL gives an outline treatment to the popular typeface used on record album covers in the 1960s and 1970s, and is based on Jeff Levine's Album Cover JNL.

A classical 20-th century's (1900s to 1980s) typewriter font for both text and large display usage, titles, signage... A new thicker version of Selectric (2016), as if typed using not a thin carbon ribbon but a coarse fabric one. Both are available on a different models of Selectrics. Made after rare enough samples of the same style used during 1980s in the USSR. Based on the actual letter proportions of the original typewriter Selectric (2016) (Cyrillic ball). This time not monospaced as before, but proportional. The single known so far previous typewriter vector typeface with this 'ink blotting' effect (similarly expanded serifs) as in Dodo (2008) is ITC American Typewriter (1974; by Joel Kaden and Tony Stan) and all its hand drawn analogs from 1980s (and perhaps before). Which, in turn, is resembling ATF Bulletin Typewriter's (1925, 1933; by Morris Fuller Benton) overall proportions, geometry, and even had some natural ink expands in its paper sample (but not by design, as I see it).

Many great lettering examples were found in the 1939 French publication by Georges Léculier, "Modèles de Lettres Moderns" ("Models of Modern Letters"). One design in particular is a stencil alphabet so typical of the Art Deco movement of the 1930s. Artwork Stencil JNL is now available digitally in both regular and oblique versions.

Camelia is an demi–slab display type family with reversed strokes to achieve an unexpected look and rythm. Was designed and optimized for use in large sizes. It is inspired by the geometric typefaces of the 1920s and the egyptiennes of the 1930s. An emphasis on circular and rectangular shape give it the identity.

Another example of 1930s French Art Deco lettering from the 1934 publication L'Art du Tracé Rationnel de la Lettre (which roughly translates to “The Rational Path Art of the Letter”) resulted in the digital typeface French Slab Serif JNL. This bold and slightly eccentric slab serif design is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Here is another attempt to create a font for invitation work unlike any already out in the world. In casting about for a name, I decided to call it Valerie after Valerie Hope, a mindreader of days long gone, who played California theatres in the 1930s and 1940s. And who, incidentally, was my mother.

Avenida was created by architect and designer John Chippindale in 1994 and is a constructed typeface that leaves a cool, sophisticated impression. An Art Deco typeface inspired lettering found on buildings constructed in Spain's Andalucian region in the 1930's and 1940's. Avenida is best suited to headlines and short to middle length texts.

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.

Rock-steady and friendly, yet animated and exciting, Adventuring evolved from the hand drawn, uppercase title lettering used for the 1950s and 1960s dust jackets of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series of books.

Stencil Work JNL was re-drawn from a vintage paper stencil with one inch high Roman letters and numbers, often found in stationery, drug and variety stores in the 1950s through the 1980s.

A cardboard stencil toy for children from the late 1950's or early 1960's was the inspiration for Study Hall JNL, part of a series of stencil revival fonts from Jeff Levine.

Display Inline JNL is a companion design to Jeff Levine's Signboard JNL font - both derived from die-cut display letters and numbers popular during the 1950s and 1960s for signs and show cards.

Svengali Roman is loosely inspired by a scrap of 1920s newspaper posted in the Typophile font identification forum. The consensus view there favored the view that the specimen showed hand-drawn lettering. As that lettering had such charm and character Greater Albion decided to fill the gap and design a face loosely based on it. Svengali Roman is the result and makes an excellent face for eye catching period poster design, or for any headings and titles. Svengali Roman has now been expanded to a full family, including regular and bold weights as well as incised (a hand tooled look) and newsprint (weathered warn type with ink bleeds) styles.

Artist Colony JNL is the third type design inspired by some online examples from an early 20th Century French book of decorative hand lettering. While Arte Critique JNL and French Art Initials JNL embrace the Art Noveau style, Artist Colony JNL leans more toward the emerging Art Deco Movement of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Ask any typical New Yorker about subway directions and they'll tell you to take the "uptown line", "downtown line" or "cross-town line". Uptown Line JNL is yet another variation of the Art Deco monoline style of lettering prevalent during the 1930s and 1940s, and is based on titling from vintage sheet music for a Johann Strauss classical piece.

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.

Birch Beer JNL comes from lettering spotted on a European business sign found in some stock footage that was used for an old black and white film about World War II. The name is derived from a popular root beer-like soda sold by the Royal Castle Restaurants that were popular in Florida from the 1930s through the 1970s.

At first glance, this unusual display face might appear to be a product of the 1960s, with its highly unconventional letterforms and its plastic, fantastic highlight treatment. However, this font is in fact inspired by a ca. 1930 poster for a Belgian beer of the same name. The uncredited Flemish designer was clearly a head of his time (ouch!).

Night Life JNL follows the classic lettering forms of the Art Deco era of the 1930s and 1940s. On the upper case letters, the A,B,E,F,H,K,P and R have extended horizontals, while the lower case a,b,e,f,h,k,p and r have those extensions removed and are more traditional in design.