Aldus was designed by Hermann Zapf and appeared with the font foundry D. Stempel AG in Frankfurt am Main in 1954. Zapf named this font after the famous Venetian printer Aldus Manutius, whose work is among the most important of the Renaissance period as well as Zapf’s inspiration for Aldus. Linotype Aldus was introduced by Linotype Library as a text font lighter than Palatino. Zapf’s goal with his Palatino and Aldus was to create a new form of Old Face typeface. This font gives text the feeling of elegance which was typical of the Renaissance.

The inspiration for AlbertBetenbuch came from a typeface drawn by Albert Dürer and an interpretation of that face in Arthur Baker’s Historic Calligraphic Alphabets (Dover, 1980). It is not a recreation of either. The characteristic common to AlbertBetenbuch and the faces inspiring it is the decorative zig-zag with the upper-case letters. In late 2018 the inside of the shadowed style was separated out. It looks very much like the plain face but its spacing matches the shadowed version. It can be layered with the shadowed version to easily create two-colored letters.

In the 1960s it was a popular trend to personalize one’s possessions with your initials. From wallets and handbags to eyeglasses; from luggage to even cars, initial personalization was the fad of the time. The British division of Gulf Oil offered for sale a set of gold metallic stick-on initials for 25 pence, complete with two Gulf logos so the company could get some extra advertising mileage out of the promotion. These extra-wide, bold initials served as the idea model for Personalization JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The hand lettered sans serif title on the1931 sheet music for “(Potatoes are Cheaper-Tomatoes are Cheaper) Now’s the Time to Fall in Love” presented another opportunity to create a typeface from the wealth of unusual alphabets found on the covers of vintage and antique song sheets. However, it seems that even as late as the 1930s, song writers had the urge to pen long-worded titles for their musical compositions. This thirteen word verbal excursion became the model for Casual Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

By the late 1920s, lettering and design had already begun to feel the influences of what would become the Art Deco Movement. The sheet music for the 1927 song "Without You Sweetheart" had its title hand lettered in a block style letter with rounded corners – with the exception of the 'S' and 'R' in "Sweetheart"; reflecting design elements of both styles. For consistency, those letters were changed to fit the rest of the design, and the result is the digital font College Nouveau JNL, available in both regular and oblique versions.

San Marco is a part of the 1990 program Type before Gutenberg, which included the work of twelve contemporary font designers and represented styles from across the ages. Linotype offers a package including all these fonts on its web page, www.fonts.de. San Marco was designed by Karlgeorg Hoefer and brings to mind the style of the Italian Gothic found on the cathedrals of Milan and Florence as well as on the facade of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. Its highly stylized characters make San Marco a good choice for extravagant typography.

This typeface is a new and improved (really!) version of one of my most popular freeware fonts, Team Spirit, which has made appearances in the Tank McNamara comic strip and on Blue Collar TV. Add the “nose” at the front with an open parenthesis -(- and add the tail with a close parenthesis -). To continue the bar beneath between words, use the _underscore in place of a space. No math operators and limited punctuation, but complete accented characters for the Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

I was commissioned by the Emporium (now Macys) to digitize Radiant Bold Extra Condensed (originally designed by Robert Middleton in 1940) for use in their Sunday supplement to the San Francisco Examiner. For several years, I stubbornly refused to add the lowercase letters to the font, because I thought it looked best just used with caps, but finally relented, added the lowercase letters and at the same time created two more weights as well: Light and Medium. Used very large and carefully, these faces can be quite elegant.

Decalcomania JNL is based on examples of gold and black water-applied initial decals made by the Transfer Monogram Company of Chicago circa the 1940s. It is presumed the patterns for the letters were hand cut, possibly explaining the variations in line widths and character shapes. These eccentricities were left intact and followed through to the other characters in order to represent a more "authentic" digital version of these vintage decals. Decalcomania JNL is available in both the regular (outline) version, and a solid black version, as well as obliques of both styles.

Designed for the newspaper technology of the 1980s, Clarion uses many of the findings made in the preparation of Monotype Nimrod, from which it is derived. The Clarion font family differs from Nimrod in its detailing, which is more akin to that of the Ionics, a style which influenced most designers of contemporary newspaper faces. The large x-height and sturdy construction of the characters make Clarion well suited for use on laser printers as well as being an excellent choice for setting newspapers, journals, newsletters and circulars.

The inspiration source for Chaoxiang Monogram is another hand-drawn treasure from a vintage embroidery publication which plays on the anglo-version of chinese letters with stabbing strokes and the charm of the orient. While the original intent of this monogram style is uncertain, the possibilities of its use are up to your imagination. This is one of many monogram designs from the early 1900’s which fall into a two letter format bound within a framing element. Download and view the MFC Chaoxiang Guidebook if you would like to learn a little more.

This is a family of "Gothic" types from the Monotype Design Studio. The faces named "Gothic No. 1 through 4" were produced by Compugraphic. Gothic No. 1 is a condensed, late 19th century American-style sans serif typeface. Gothic No. 2 and Gothic No. 3 are based on the Metro #2 series, designed by W.A. Dwiggins for Mergenthaler Linotype during the 1920s and 30s. Gothic No. 4 looks vaguely like Gothic number one, but is heavier and smaller on the body. Gothic Extra Light Extended is a very light and wide design.

The Xavier family of typefaces is based on the delightful deco typeface called Ashley Crawford, originally designed in 1930 by Ashley Havinden. After designing Xavier Black (Serif) and Xavier Sans Black, I added Bold Sans, Medium and Medium Sans and finally added lowercase to the medium weights. Although more manageable than Ashley Crawford, Xavier, due to its very playful nature (splayed A, M, etc.) needs to be used with care, especially in terms of spacing. Xavier is a playful typeface and I have been particularly pleased to see it used in children's books.

The Women's Suffrage Movement gained women the right to vote in 1920. Up until then there were many ways undertaken to rally sympathy for the cause. In 1916 Alice Paul formed the National Woman's Party. That same year a song with the [exhaustive] sixteen word title "She's Good Enough to be Your Baby's Mother (And She's Good Enough to Vote with You)" yielded a hand lettered Art Nouveau sans serif design in the main portion of the title. This became the basis for Plain Nouveau JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

RMU Gilgengart is a revival of Hermann Zapf’s beautiful calligraphic blackletter font which was cut and first released by Stempel in 1952. This font comes with fine ligatures and swash letters. Before working with this font it is recommended to activate both OT features Standard and Discretionary Ligatures in order to get access to all ligatures. RMU Gilgengart contains the following swash letters: D, L, h, f, g, k, round s, and t, whereby you should use the small letters at the end of a word or slogan only.

The inspiration source for MFC Gilchrist Monogram is an extremely ornamented letterset from a vintage embroidery publication from the early 1900's. We’ve digitally recreated the ornamental glyphs from the original design, and created a matching set of smallcaps in order to offer more versatility with this monogram. We have also created two additional sets of alternate glyphs with different fills for more variations. Experiment with all of these in different combinations for unique designs. Download and view the MFC Gilchrist Monogram Guidebook if you would like to learn a little more.

Staehle Graphia Script was designed by Professor Walter Stähle in the 1960s. It is a very vertical font in the style of the printing on private correspondence in the 19th century. The elegant and sweeping capitals of Linotype Staehle Graphia Script are particularly well-suited to the beginning of passages or lines while the capitals of Linotype Staehle Graphia are better for longer texts. Both should be used with a relatively small line width. The lyricism and liveliness displayed by the font makes it the perfect choice for artistic texts such as poems.

Linotype Lichtwerk, from German designer Bernd Pfannkuchen, is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from the entries of the Linotype-sponsored International Digital Type Design Contest 1999 for inclusion on the Take Type 3 CD. This display font contains very narrow forms with a high x-height. It is reminiscent of the constructivism of the 1920s and was designed with a small number of basic forms. The high, thin letters form words and an overall picture which almost flickers on the page. Linotype Lichtwerk with its technical look is suited exclusively for headlines.

Happy Trails is a font that is based on the lettering (all upper case) used on most Trailways buses from 1936 through the very early 1960s. It also has a newly created set of lower case letters which never existed before. The font was tweaked and digitized by Bob Alonso & John Bomparte. Happy Trails has not only the flavor of the early Trailways buses but also a folksy, Western feel to it, and it’s even a bit silly or goofy, a fun font that has a variety of uses.

New Alphabet was created as a four weight family in close collaboration with Wim Crouwel. His response in the late 1960s to the first device for electronic typesetting was a radical experiment designed to follow the underlying dot-matrix system. With his strong interest in grids, Crouwel worked within the constraints of existing electronic technology, to produce characters that worked with the mechanical means that conveyed them. His original New Alphabet experiments have now been further developed by The Foundry into a typeface family that also includes the dot version.

A rubber stamp printing set from the 1930s (or possibly earlier) was the model for Winery JNL. Containing a pleasant serif font, it also provided a few little touches unusual for such toy sets of the time. The horizontal crossbar of the H has a diamond embellishment, as does the horizontal stroke of the number 3. Additionally, the lower right tail of the G curves away from the letter and the Q has a spiral tail. Re-drawn from scans of the original stamp impressions, this typeface is available in both regular and oblique versions.

In the days of hand lettering, a common philosophy was "the problem creates the solution". Often times the layout artist would have to adapt the lettering style to fit the amount of copy on a line. A perfect example is during the early 1900s, when popular sheet music of the time almost seemed to be competing for how many words could be used within a song's a title. One such piece of sheet music offered up the tall, condensed and variable-width lettering found within Narrow Minded JNL.

The first cuts of Trade Gothic were designed by Jackson Burke in 1948. He continued to work on further weights and styles until 1960 while he was director of type development for Mergenthaler-Linotype in the USA. Trade Gothic does not display as much unifying family structure as other popular sans serif font families, but this dissonance adds a bit of earthy naturalism to its appeal. Trade Gothic is often seen in advertising and multimedia in combination with roman text fonts, and the condensed versions are popular in the newspaper industry for headlines.

Journalistic is one in a series of fonts designed for use in creating replica vintage newspapers. It is inspired by the nameplate of a New England newspaper from the 1920s. Its rough character is apparent at headline sizes, and it remains nicely legible at smaller sizes for diplomas and other formal documents. The OpenType font contains a variety of discretionary ligatures and contextual alternates, including the long s and other glyphs for classic German typography. Long s substitution can be achieved through either historical or titling alternate OpenType features.

A heavy blackletter; Rudolf Koch’s first type from 1909. On an old page full of type specimen from the 1930s, the type is described as ”Schwabacher (used by the Deutsche Reichsbahn [German Imperial Railway]).“ As a matter of fact, it is the first print of the Offenbach script master Rudolf Koch, who came out with this typeface in 1909. At that time, it was given the name ”Neudeutsch“ (New German). Later, it became very popular under the name Koch-Schrift, and was at times the official typeface of the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Imperial Railway).

For Monumental Gothic, we delved into the archives and found some old rubbings and photos of monumental brasses from British tombs of the 12th and 13th centuries. The sources included famous monuments like the tomb of Richard II and less well known inscriptions with similar style lettering. The rubbings were made by Dave Nalle in the 1970s (when they still let you have access to the the brasses). Monumental Gothic includes some alternate characters, plus upper and lower case characters, numbers and a selection of very interesting decorative emblems to complement the text.

Samuel Welo’s “Studio Handbook for Artists and Advertisers” contained dozens of hand-lettered alphabets used as inspiration for both the sign trade and for graphic designers. Intertitle Nouveau JNL – available in both regular and oblique versions – was originally an alphabet produced by a round lettering nib, and was first shown in the 1927 edition (later reprinted in the 1960 edition). It is reminiscent of the lettering used on intertitle cards of the silent film era. This font marks an amazing milestone - the 2000th release by Jeff Levine Fonts since its inception in January of 2006.

The specimen book Alphabete: ein Schriftatlas von A bis Z identified the pattern for this typeface as Stymie Black Flair. Although neither the designer nor the original foundry is identified, it bears a strong resemblance to the work of Dave West for Photolettering in the 60s and 70s. Big, beautiful and bodacious, it’s a natural choice for attention-grabbing headlines. Many alternate characters available: see the full character map. The PC PostScript, TrueType and OpenType versions contain the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

The design of this display face is based on the hot metal typeface Acropolis, issued by the German type foundry Ludwig Wagner in Leipzig in 1940. To further increase its usefulness a Cyrillic was added to it: URW Akropolis, redrawn and digitally remastered by Coen Hofmann for the URW Font Forum, is a true display design that should not be set below 48 point if you want to preserve it's fine details like the open triangular sections, e.g. in L, G, S, T etc. and gain the full typographic splendidness of this beautiful typeface.

Rundfunk Grotesk was produced together with Rundfunk Antiqua by the Linotype Design Studio in 1933-1935. The combination was originally intended for small point sizes and shorter texts. Unfortunately, this typeface was never completed and consists only of Antiqua roman and Grotesk bold. This unusual combination was chosen because small newspaper ads often use a semi bold for the headlines and a regular antique for the text. Rundfunk Grotesk is intended to be used exclusively in headlines and reflects in its unique character the spirit of the 1930s.

Letterpress type, crafted by H. Th. Wijdeveld, founding editor and chief designer of the legendary Dutch art and architecture magazine Wendingen, provided the inspiration for this typeface. The original design graced a 1925 issue examining the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, and Wijdeveld created his typeface by assembling bits of standard brass rules. This version features several of the meanders typical of Wijdeveld’s graphic design in the dagger, double dagger, ASCII tilde and ASCII circumflex positions. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Round, firm, and bursting at the seams with good humor, ITC Mister Chuckles is based on the premise that barrel shapes have pleasant associations. Think: beer-barrel polkas, a barrel of fun, or a barrel of laughs, and you'll get the idea. Designer Nick Curtis has combined sans serif sturdiness, a hint of 1930s deco and a handful of giggles in this remarkably versatile all-cap face. If the typographic occasion calls for mirth and merriment, invite Mister Chuckles to the party. You'll have more fun than a barrel of monkeys!

Designed by Les Usherwood. Chelsea is a ‘modern’ Old Style serif font family designed by Les Usherwood (Typsettra) in the early 1980’s. Steve Jackaman (ITF) digitally engineered the family exclusively for ITF’s Red Rooster Collection in 1993. Usherwood drew influence from Frederic Goudy’s 1911 creation ‘Kennerley Old Style’ when designing Chelsea; Chelsea, however, tends to be wider with a taller x-height. Chelsea has the clean and upscale feel that is present in all Usherwood creations, and its legible design lends itself to projects of any size.

A circa-1951 toy set called “Kusan Kavalcade of Letters” was comprised of molded plastic letters and numbers a child could play with, trace and arrange to learn their alphabet and numerals. Typographically, the design was all over the place – from sans serif characters to those with some spurred serifs and even some stenciled characters because of the nature of manufacture. As odd as this combination seems, it was novel enough to be turned into a digital typeface called Stencil Playthings JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Lasting Impression JNL was rendered from scans of a 1930s rubber stamp printing set. At small sizes it has the look of hand-stamped lettering. At larger sizes, the user will see jagged and angular lines giving the font a kind of retro-grunge look. This typeface was the model for the more cleanly-drawn Casual Friday JNL, also by Jeff Levine. There is a limited character set, and both the spacing and kerning have been intentionally omitted so that the results will more closely resemble the uneven letter spacing of rubber stamps on paper.

Journal Sans Old School is a new, modernized digital version of the widely popular Journal Sans. The new typeface preserves the character of the geometric sans from the famous “Science and Life” magazine of the 1960s. The weight of the basic styles corresponds to the Journal Sans regular and bold from the Soviet linotype catalogs. Also, the original vertical proportions and character forms match the original. Cyrillic Alternates, Greek language support expand the range of font’s usage. Journal Sans Old School was designed by Natalia Vasilyeva and released by Paratype in 2019.

The hand-lettered title, cast and crew credits for 1943's "Presenting Lily Mars" (starring Judy Garland and Van Heflin) inspired Pocatello JNL, but the name of this typeface has another Judy Garland connection. In the 1954 remake of "A Star is Born", Judy sings of being born in a trunk in a theater located in Pocatello, Idaho. The name of this Midwest town had such a great sound to it, so it was the perfect choice for the font's name. Available in regular, oblique, bold and bold oblique versions.

New Letter Gothic was designed for ParaType by Gayaneh Bagdasaryan based on monospaced Letter Gothic font by Roger Roberson, 1956–62. Due to clear and easy-to-read lettershapes of Letter Gothic the font is rather popular now for display and advertising matters. The idea was to create a font similar to Letter Gothic in lettershapes but with proportional widths of letters. For use in both display and text setting. New Letter Gothic has been adjudged an Award for Excellence in Type Design at Kyrillitsa ’99 International Type Design competition in Moscow, 1999.

Because of the large influx of Irish immigrants during the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was not unusual for songwriters of the day to craft songs around Irish themes, offering a nostalgic link to their homeland. One such 1917 piece entitled "You Brought Ireland Right Over to Me" had the title hand lettered on the sheet music cover in a sans serif design reflecting the popular Art Nouveau movement of the day. This design is now available digitally as Retro Nouveau JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Vododeo JNL is directly named for the free-form sheet music title lettering from Jack Yellen and Milton Ager's "Vo-Do-De-O". The term itself was a catchphrase made popular during the era known as the "Roaring 20s". Yellen and Ager were responsible for such hits as "Ain't She Sweet" (1927) and "Happy Days Are Here Again" (1930) along with countless others. During his career, Jack Yellen provided lyrics to over 200 songs. As a side note, Yellen was married to a distant cousin of type designer Jeff Levine's late mother.