Bunyan Pro is the synthesis of Bunyan, the last face Eric Gill designed for hand setting in 1934 and Pilgrim, the machine face based on it, issued by British Linotype in the early 1950s — the most popular Gill text face in Britain from its release until well into the 1980s. Gill’s last face doesn't date itself anywhere near as obviously as Gill’s other serif faces, which were all really products of their time, heavily influenced by the richly ornamental and constantly changing aesthetic trends of the interwar period. When compared to Gill’s previous work, Bunyan seems like a revolution in the way he thought and drew. It’s as if he was shrugging off all heavy burden of what was popular, and going back to the basics of older standards. Bunyan had no bells and whistles, doesn't risk functionality with contrasts that are too high or too low, and didn't venture far outside the comfortable oldstyle rhythm Gill grew up with. By interbellum standards, this was utter austerity, a veritable denial of deco excess. Surprisingly, even without all the cloying trivialities, Bunyan still stood indisputably as an aesthetically pleasing, space saving design that could have been made only by Eric Gill. Bunyan Pro comes in three weights and their italics. The main font is intended for use between 8 and 14 points. The medium and the bold are great for emphasis but also have good merit in larger sizes, so can make effective display types as well. All six fonts include small caps, ligatures, alternates, six sets of figures, and three original Gill manicules. We tried to keep the best features of the handset (Bunyan) and machine (Pilgrim) versions while building a text face that can function in today’s immersive reading media. Deciding on which useful letterpress features to preserve for aesthetic importance was hell on our eyeballs — which lead to complex and painstaking ways of ironing out irregularities and inconsistencies related to metal technologies, in order to provide something with authenticity. The result is a unique typeface based on a Gill design that, to a much greater extent than any of his other faces, works well as a text face that can be used for entire books and magazines. For more information on Bunyan Pro’s character set, features, development process and some print tests, please consult the PDF in the gallery section of this page.

From 1958 to 1964, one of ABC-TV’s popular shows was the detective series “77 Sunset Strip”. Based in Los Angeles, the fictional detective agency was located next door to Dino’s Lodge, (partly owned by Dean Martin and actually located at 8532 Sunset). It was originally known as the Alpine Lodge. The adjacent building where Stuart Bailey and Jeff Spencer’s private detective service was located in fact housed a popular modeling agency. The ‘77’ address did not exist outside of the realm of the series. However, a wonderful sign with Art Deco-influenced lettering graced the set (on the wall of the office foyer) saying “Bailey & Spencer Private Investigators Suites 101-102”. A screen capture of this sign served as the working model for Private Eye JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Here is a profoundly delicate and graceful design that has its roots in art deco fashion. This elegant typeface is based on an old 1930s lettering style popularized by Carl Holmes in his wonderful book on the subject. Somewhat condensed with a very tall lowercase, Panorama carries itself beautifully. It is similar to such classics as Stellar and Optima with stems flaring slightly at the ends. Panorama has a great number of alternate capital, small capital, and lowercase characters including two sets of alternate figures. Panorama, Panorama Alts, and Panorama SC are also available in the OpenType Std format. Some new characters have been added to these OpenType versions. Advanced features currently work in Adobe Creative Suite InDesign, Creative Suite Illustrator, and Quark XPress 7. Check for OpenType advanced feature support in other applications as it gradually becomes available with upgrades.

IronType (formerly known as Ironman) is an extra bold geometric titling face in the Art Deco poster tradition. A warm sense of strength and playfulness runs throughout this design. Triangular-shaped crossbars are some of its distinguishing characteristics. The face also contains some very amusing alternates. The tails of the alternate cap K and R extend below the line and the alternate cap N has a hump instead of a diagonal stroke. A handy set of lowercase letters with lining and smaller figures are also included. IronType Extra Bold is now available in the OpenType Std format. Some new characters have been added to this OpenType version. These advanced features work in current versions of Adobe Creative Suite InDesign, Creative Suite Illustrator, and Quark XPress. Check for OpenType advanced feature support in other applications as it gradually becomes available with upgrades.

Tusque is a layered chromatic type family with a Tuscan flavor. Regular, Circus and Tooled can stand alone, while Highlight and Deco are purely for layering up multicolored gorgeousness. Tusque lends itself to fairy tales, wine labels and boutique logos, and makes some particularly delectable drop caps. Although it’s all caps, the lower case slots are all different from the upper case so you can mix and match to your heart’s content. There are also a bevy of swash alternates and ligatures at your disposal. The contextual alternates feature cleverly substitutes alternate versions of more triangular glyphs like A and V to give a better fit. The ordinal feature changes ‘a’ and ‘o’ to the feminine and masculine ordinals for Spanish etc. but also changes ‘c’ and ‘ac’ to superscript lowercase versions for names like McBride and MacDonald.

Naïve Inline is a layered serif handwritten font designed by Fanny Coulez and Julien Saurin in Paris. Our goal was to draw a font with finely irregular lines that give a human and whimsical feeling. We designed three weights to assure a good readability whatever the size. They can be enhanced with five different interior patterns and three shadows to improve your designs and bring a charming and unusual feeling. To do so, you can simply superimpose the layers with a compatible software like Photoshop, the weight above and the pattern(s) below, then choose a color for each. This font is part of our Naïve superfamily that contains lot of variations: Line, Inline, Serif, Sans Serif, and a special Art Deco one. Just click on our foundry name to see them all! We hope you will enjoy our work. Merci beaucoup!

Hollywood Revue JNL gets its design inspiration and name from a vintage movie poster for "The Hollywood Revue of 1929". The letter style shows early Art Deco influences, yet the hand lettering was done in the late 1920s toward the end of the Art Nouveau period. MGM produced this early "talkie" all-star musical with a cast that included Jack Benny, John Gilbert, Conrad Nagel, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Polly Moran and many others. This is the motion picture where Cliff ("Ukelele Ike") Edwards introduced "Singin' in the Rain" (composed by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown). Years later, Freed was a producer at MGM and gathered up many of the songs he and Brown wrote during the 1920s to form the musical core of the 1952 Gene Kelly-Debbie Reynolds-Donald O'Conner musical "Singin' in the Rain".

The Rosella™ family, by Sabina Chipară, is an elegant and playful suite of typefaces that are ideal for book covers, social announcements, packaging and posters. Inspired by late 19th century engravers typefaces that mimic the delicate and ornate hairlines of steel and copperplate engraving, the family’s foundation is built on the dramatic Solid design and then expands to Deco, Engraved, Flourish, Hatched and Inline styles. Rosella also takes to color like the beautiful Australian parrot it is named after. Words set in the typeface come alive when vibrant colors, or tinted backgrounds become part of their plumage. While modern as today, the design also has a quiet antique vibe that brings an understated refinement to a variety of hardcopy projects. Rosella is a typeface for those times you need a design that stands out from the crowd – but with grace and composure.

Waite Park JNL is based on the smallest of the die-cut letters and numbers contained in the Webway Sign Cabinet - once manufactured by the Holes-Webway Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The largest of the set's sizes (2 inch) was the model for Sign Kit JNL, the medium size (1-1/8 inch) was used to make Sign Production JNL and this font is a version from the 3/4 inch size. Each size of alphabet and numerals have their own unique characteristics, although they all follow the same basic font style, which is reminiscent of classic Art Deco-era sanserif typefaces. The name Waite Park JNL was derived from a division of Holes-Webway that (for some reason lost to time) distributed their sign kits under the name Waite Park Sign Company, located in the Minnesota city of the same name.

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.

Chicago Ornaments is a collection of decorative cuts cast by the Chicago Type Foundry of Marder, Luse & Co. of 139-141 Monroe Street in Chicago, Illinois. This collection was shown in their 1890 Price List. According to William E. Loy, at least some of them were designed by William F. Capitain. Chicago was one of the innovative Midwest type foundries, introducing the American Point System. These designs represent the late Victorian period. After 1890, with the posters of Jules Cheret taking Paris by storm, Art Nouveau gradually began to displace Victorian style. In type design, both styles competed against each other until about the end of the century. Designers may want to consider using these ornaments when using Victorian style typefaces, like our Cruickshank, Edison and Freak - as well as faces by others such as Karnac, Kismet and Quaint Gothic. Included in the font are a set of Dormer-inspired caps, numerals and a few other glyphs - also from the Victorian period.