This roly-poly romp through the alphabets is based on a showing from Carl Holmes' 1950s book, ABC of Lettering, published by art-for-the-masses magnate Walter T. Foster. Named as an apt companion to my East Coast Frolics.

Inspired by the hand lettered phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” in a 1923 promotional blurb for Speedball lettering pens, Pen Nib Western JNL recreates the decorative style of this vintage artistic gem in both regular and oblique versions.

Compliments was inspired by a few hand-lettered words on a 1930s brochure by Western Union entitled “The Yellow Blank is Correct for Every Social Need.” It is now available in OpenType format with contextual alternates for a better script effect.

Elle is a geometric sans in three weights with rounded stroke terminals and circular forms. Classy, elegant and modern, with just a hint of the future. Inspired by a single-weight Typositor headline typeface from the early 1970s called Pipeline.

Barnhart Bros. and Spindler called this Faust Text when they introduced it in 1898. A quarter of a century later, they brought back a number of obsolete faces and renamed them. This one became Missal Text in their 1923 catalog.

Lakeland JNL was inspired by lettering seen on a vintage container of Yankee brand motor oil. Originally all-caps on the package, the remaining characters were developed to expand on this casual semi-script design which was popular during the 1940s.

Dez Weimar Plakat Pro was inspired by a 1923 Weimar Bauhaus exhibition poster. It is in strict keeping with Constructivist rectilinear thought of that time. Dez Weimar Plakat Pro includes multiple language support including Greek and Cyrillic-- contains nearly 800 glyphs.

Hoxie JNL is based on an example found in an old sign painter's design book from the early 1900s and has been translated to digital form by Jeff Levine. All of the quirks and charm of hand lettering have remained.

Many similar fonts existed in Europe around 1900 and a bit before. This one was made at the Wollmer Foundry in Germany and, except for adding the requisite modern monetary symbols and other such niceties, we preserved it quite faithfully.

Sarcastic is a monoline display typeface. It draws influence from a visual language of mid-twentieth century consumerism: 1950s script typography and the rhythmic forms of interconnected neon lettering. Sarcastic is perfect for contemptuous quips, disparaging proclamations, and castigating commentary.

Designed by Sol Hess in 1940 as a variation of Stymie Extrabold but with squared corners where round shapes would normally be. This striking display face is found in only some Lanston Monotype catalogs and specimens are somewhat hard to find.

Ht Pizzeria is strong looking script for eye-catching part. Holiday Type Project offers retro hand drawing scripts. Inspired by retro script on shopfront lettering, wall paint advertisements in Italy around 1950s. Check out the script fonts from Holiday Type!

Frank Bartuska designed Trophy Oblique in 1950. It is a freestyle script face, good for packaging and titles. The PL Trophy Oblique font is more like contemporary handwriting than most script faces making it a perfect choice for personal messages.

Gummed Alphabet JNL was modeled from a 1960s-era package of foil embossed gummed letters. This type of lettering device was sold through stationery, variety stores and similar merchants, and could be used for personalizing items or making small signs.

Hobo font was designed in 1910 by Morris Fuller Benton for American Type Founders. This unusual Art Nouveau-inspired design contains no straight lines and no descenders. It imparts a friendliness to display work such as invitations, menus, signage, and packaging.

A super wide san serif typeface inspired by event graphics for Sheffield music venues in the 1990s. Most influential work by The Designers Republic (TDR). Details include four unique styles, extended European character set, manually edited kerning and Euro symbol.

Inspired by building signage for the old CBS broadcasting facility in Los Angeles, Aircheck JNL is a bold, wide sans serif - reminiscent of Art Deco lettering of the 1940's, and perfectly suited for headlines and titles that get attention.

Casting Call JNL is a simple condensed sans modeled from the hand-lettered title of a piece of vintage sheet music entitled "Somebody Else is Taking My Place"; a 1940s song co-authored and made famous by bandleader Russ Morgan.

On page 34 of the 1930 Samuel Welo publication “Lettering - Practical and Foreign” is a simple, basic Art Deco monoline design. This hand lettered type style is now digitally available as Basic Monoline JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Quorfid JNL is Jeff Levine's version of an old classic- Orplid. Especially popular in the 1950s, this cast shadow outline font has a decidedly hand-made look to it. From headlines to point-of-sale signage, it fits into all applications.

This font was adapted from an old lettering book, circa 1900. The book got away from us many years ago, but we had made stats of all the potentially useful fonts. Original had no lowercase or numerals, so we designed them.

Hardwood is a reworked foundry typeface from the 1930's, providing an interpretation of the Art Deco graphic style. It harkens back to the golden era of poster design and Hollywood movie marquees, while retaining superb legibility at virtually any size.

This face was designed in 1925 as the Monotype answer to the very popular Cooper Black. Goudy is also quite similar in appearance to Ludlow Black and Pabst Extra Bold, both of which were also done in response to Cooper Black.

Lettering specimens from 1910 by an unnamed Dutch calligrapher provided the inspiration for this quirky and somewhat mischievous Art Nouveau font. Both versions of the font include the 1252 Latin and 1250 CE character sets (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

The idea of creating this font is based on Koch’s Schmale Deutsche Anzeigenschrift which was released in 1923 by Klingspor in Offenbach, Germany. This font was entirely redrawn and completed with the help of a few basic letters and the numerals.

ABTS Aviator is a font inspired by the 1950s and mixed with letterforms of the Art Deco era of design. It's simple, yet stylish and modern, yet retro. A nice mix of personality and geometry allowing for a variety of applications.

This naïve script was discovered in a French printers' magazine from 1927. Its total lack of pretension makes it warm and inviting. Both versions of this font support the Latin 1252, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

Stencil Modernistic JNL was modeled directly from an early 1960s lettering stencil that favored the Art Deco style. There is minimum kerning due to the nature of this typeface, so designers should use their own judgment when working with it.

The Liberty font was designed by William T. Sniffin and released in 1927. This script is very fine, with a light color. Liberty can be used on stationery and packaging and is also suitable for short pieces of copy in brochures.

The elegance of the 1940s and the Art Deco Era is evident in Wingate JNL from Jeff Levine. Its tall, graceful styling is perfect for invitations, letterheads, announcements or anything that needs the look of yesterday with a sophisticated understatement.

Like many of the Victorian decorative fonts, this one had caps only when Barnhart Bros. and Spindler brought it out. In 1990, we decided to draw a lowercase for it, making it more versatile. A good font for period typography.

The POINTIFAX family is a typographic flashback to computing of the early 1980s. POINTIFAX is based on a matrix of dots and looks like the output on an old computer screen. Each is built out of dots, horizontal and vertical lines.

Baldione is a highly stylised variation upon a classic Didone typeface, incorporating a globular decorative 'ball' or 'blob' in each character's design. The result has a feel of the 1970s about it somehow and works well in poster and advertising designs with a hint of the outré' about them. Balidone includes an extensive range of ligatures and stylistic alternates. Article abstract: Baldione is a highly stylised variation upon a classic Didone typeface, incorporating a globular decorative 'ball' or 'blob' in each character's design. The result has a feel of the 1970s about it somehow and works well in poster and advertising designs with a hint of the outré' about them.

Octopuss is an energetic titling typeface designed in 1970 by Colin Brignall for Letraset dry transfer sheets. Brignall expanded the basic alphabet with an outline variation with a shadow, which makes the typeface look three dimensional, almost like it is floating. Octopuss font displays the unmistakable signs of the typefaces of the 1970s, as do Countdown and Harlow, also designed by Brignall. The circular strokes of the capitals that drop well under the base line are striking and unique. Because of the small white spaces of its lower case letters, the rounded, robust Octopuss is meant exclusively as a headline font and should be set in large point sizes.

Joseph Kaspar Sattler, one of the great German art nouveau artists created these nice initials in 1897 for the famous royal monumental book project Die Nibelunge for the Reichsdruckerei Berlin. Only 200 exclusive signed masterpieces were printed in four years from 1900 till 1904. Joseph Sattler was the art director, typographer and designer in one person. The Reichsdruckerei showed samples of the unfinished work in 1900 at the world exhibition in Paris to advertise the high craftsmanship of the German presses. Style Initials A uses the OpenType features Superscript and Scientific Inferiors to change the fill layer. You can combine up to three different color inks.

Einhorn is a peculiar typeface. Difficult to classify, this upright, bold, script-like semi serif typeface was designed in 1980 by Alan Meeks. Meeks was inspired by the art nouveau period, and may have been trying to liven up the design scene. In 1980, typefaces like Helvetica and Univers were ubiquitous, and the digital revolution was still years away. Experimental faces like Einhorn helped fill the gap for creative designers looking for untraditional choices in which to set headlines and advertising work. The merit of pioneer display faces like Einhorn have never lessened; Einhorn still sets a mean display text, and works great in logos and other corporate ID solutions.

Julia Script is a playful calligraphic font designed by David Harris in 1983. It takes the viewer back to the flower power of the 1970s. Generous capitals with cheerful, rounded stroke beginnings and endings contrast perfectly with the narrower, closer, but nevertheless vibrant lower case letters. Characteristic of this typeface and similar to Candice is the marked increase in stroke width in the lower third of the figures. This detail is reminiscent of the platform shoes typical of the 1970s. Julia Script suggests freedom and fun and can often be found on party fliers and retro advertisements. Used sparingly in headlines and slogans, Julia Script will be sure to attract attention.

Originally designed as an experiment in monospacing (Illuminati Mono), Illuminati is a mixture of sans-serif and serif. The Italics have some cursive features.

Permanent Park - 1990s Graffiti Inspired Marker Pen Font A hand-drawn marker pen font inspired by graffiti tags and 1990s Hip Hop. Permanent Park is a marker pen font with a graffiti tag aesthetic inspired by the golden-age of Hip Hop and 1990s TV shows. It’s 100% hand-drawn and comes packed with alternative characters for creating truly natural looking type treatments. No repeated oo’s, ee’s and ll’s that are a dead give-away of lazy lettering! Permanent Park is a highly customisable all-caps design featuring a complete set of uppercase and lowercase characters, along with numerals, punctuation and language support. It also features a complete set of alternatives with additional lowercase characters (for mixing things up even more), and a selection of underlines and symbols for an illustrative flourish. It’s a uniquely fun, urban looking font, typical of 90s music videos and TV shows, and equally suited to sports, travel and food themes. Check out my visuals for ideas on how you might use it on posters, movie titles, product packaging, broadcast and advertising.

Radona is a blast from the 80’s that's rader than rad. Radona is the typeface version of Synthwave, an electronic music subgenre that takes influence from the 1980s but builds on it, resulting in a construct that lives in the minds of both those who have experienced it and those who haven't. Radona expresses a nostalgia for 1980s culture, attempting to replicate and appreciate the era's vibe, but extends it further with something new. This sans family has plenty of 80's flavor, but with some fresh twists to push it to the limit. Radona is a geometric sans-serif typeface. Radona has a few quirky characteristics, but it has a generally neutral tone and structure that makes it ideal for usage in print, especially when a contemporary look is desired. It looks amazing in both body text and headlines. The geometric grotesques that were popular in the 1980s served as inspiration. It's a typeface that's been crafted for usage in a range of design fields, from branding to packaging, and it can be used in anything from interfaces to apps. Radona is an excellent typeface for use on websites and other digital applications. Radona comes with a wide variety of styles and a large selection of stylistic alternatives, ligatures, small caps and other special features. Along with parachute pants, synthesized guitar riffs, and VHS scanlines, Radona brings back the 1980’s.