The ATF syndicate released the inspiration for this quaint charmer in its 1884-1885 series of specimen books under its current name. Its warmth and unassuming naivete make it perfect for headlines seeking to evoke simpler times. Both versions of this font include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, along with localization for Lithuanian, Moldovan, Romanian and Turkish.

Schreibmeister is my interpretation of Arno Drescher’s design for Ludwig Wagner, Leipzig, completed in 1958. The letters X and x were improved as well as some ligatures. The letter E has an alternative, and the small d comes with two alternatives, of which one form can be reached by typing the partial different key. Generally it is recommended to activate both Standard and Discretionary ligatures.

Dutch type designer Erik van Blokland created this script FontFont in 1990. The font is ideally suited for advertising and packaging, festive occasions, editorial and publishing as well as poster and billboards. FF Erikrighthand provides advanced typographical support with features such as ligatures, small capitals, alternate characters, case-sensitive forms, fractions, and super- and subscript characters. It comes with proportional oldstyle and tabular oldstyle figures.

One of the classic designs of the wood type era is Hamilton Gothic Bold [from the Hamilton Wood Type Foundry circa 1889]. Clean and timeless, it even had found a resurgence during the rock and roll posters of the 1960s, where vintage wood types and Art Nouveau influences merged with the “Hippie Counterculture”. Wood Gothic JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Another entry in the trusty old "Schriftatlas" named Phoenix—original source and designer unknown—provided the inspiration for this bouncy bit of alphabetical tomfoolery. Its animated typeforms, definitely retro chic, will put some bounce in the step of any headline it graces. Both versions of the font include complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1524 character sets, with localization for Moldovan, Romanian and Turkish

A Japanese design firm called Maniackers put together a typeface design in 2001, which they called Snail. This typeface is based on that design, with a few tasty modifications and some industrial-strength kerning, so that the letters literally slither across the page. This font contains the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Bugleboy started as a digitized version of "Wood Grotesk," a 1970s film typeface by LetterGraphics. It started with a bare bones character set which we added swash alternates for Capitals, Stylistic Alternates for a Unicase look, and crafted a Sans version without serifs. The Sans style lacks swashes but keeps Stylistic Alternate Unicase forms. See the last graphic for a comprehensive character map preview.

This lettering style is unusual in that combines aspects of several lettering styles. It is essentially a Germanic Blackletter but with many romanized capital letters and also features an italic slant along with some italic lower case traits. It is evocative of “old world” craftsmanship and early 20th century romanticism. The font was developed based on the logo of the Lakin Company of Buffalo, NY circa 1900.

Morris Fuller Benton’s Eagle, designed for ATF in 1934, which did yeoman-like duty on many WPA posters of the time. This version, unicase as was the original, has been designed to set tight, so that it creates dense and commanding headlines. All versions of this font include the Unicode 1250 Central European character set in addition to the standard Unicode 1252 Latin set.

One in the series of fonts called Whiz-Bang Wood Type, intended to be set large and tight. Brazos is an ultrabold, ultrawide sans-serif face that takes up a lot of horizontal territory, but fits in little vertical space. Named after the famous river in Texas. Both versions of the font include the 1252 Latin and 1250 CE character sets (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

This rough, raw typeface is based on the lettering in Ben Shahn's iconic poster protesting the execution of Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicolo Sacco in 1927. All possible uppercase and lowercase forms have been kerned, and activating Contextual Alternates in OpenType-aware applications will alternate those forms for a more random appearance. Both versions contain the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets.

The uppercase letters of this magical, mystical face is based on various alchemical symbols used from the thirteenth through the sixteenth century; the lowercase letters are based on those found on a 1935 poster, signed simply “Strekalovsky.” Ideal for adding a little pocus to your hocus, or cadabra to your abra. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Another addition to the Whiz-Bang Woodtype series, this offering is patterned after a typeface issued by the old Boston firm of Baker & Greele in 1826. Named after a small town in Texas just a hop, skip and a jump from the Red River and Arkansas. Both versions of this font include the complete Latin 1252 and CE 1250 character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

Magic Spell is a mystical, fun font based on a handlettered alphabet in an old 1930s book on lettering. It captures that old world feel of magical wizards and fairy tales. Conjur up some fantastic designs with this bewitching font! Jukebox fonts are available in OpenType .otf format and all fonts contain basic OpenType features as well as support for Latin-based and most Eastern European languages.

Corpulent is a display font whose forms are extremely thick, up to the extent of being nearly illegible. In the 1980s, these construction principles were explored to their very limit. So if the lyrics of Eyes Without a Face resonate in your mind, the feet turn numb in super-tight trousers, and you fancy a big hair style, this font is the one for you.

Flavium is the reconstruction of the typographic character used in the engravings of the marble street name sign of Rome from about 1970 until the end of the eighties. It is an uniquely uppercase Roman font whose letters are confined within the space between the baseline and the caps line. Its style is severe but elegant, very useful for expressing authority and officialdom with simplicity.

Butterfield is based on poster lettering from posters for rock shows at the Fillmore in the 1960s. It is particularly influenced by the lettering of Wes Wilson, but has added features and improvements to make it more generally useful. It is one of the most effective examples of the psychedelic style. Combining the basic font with Photoshop's wave pattern produces the unique look seen above.

Inspired by bold and rounded typefaces on signs from the 1970s, Salsiccia can promote both your hot dog stand and your international toy store enterprise. Its boldness and roundness is combined with classical proportions, with wide letters — like the O — next to little nubby ones — like the T. This not only looks nice, but helps us even out the white spaces across words and sentences.

Many alphabet style examples from the Speedball Textbook on pen lettering have offered amateurs and professionals a source of inspiration since its first publication in 1915. A 1940s edition presented a simple sans serif design rendered with the style ‘B’ round nib pen point, and has been recreated as the digital type face Pen Sans Rounded JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A new take on the classic font Bodoni, revealing the structural elements of the font, and adding a little sparkle with a pseudo-stencil treatment. The font is named in honor of its original designer and also the undisputed king of the two-chord song. Both versions of the font include the 1252 Latin and 1250 CE character sets (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Propaganda in a poodle skirt? Another gem gleaned from Schrifti Alphabeti, a book of Cyrillic alphabets published in Kiev (now Ukraine, then USSR) in 1979. Flouncy, bouncy, perky and quirky, this typeface will add sass and charm to any project it graces. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 Latin and Unicode 1250 Central European character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

Modern Caps—and lowercase, too—was how Ross George described the pattern for this typeface in his Speedball Text Book. Not surprisingly, the design was used on the Beatles' original Magical Mystery Tour album, which suggested the current name. Art Deco meets Psychedelia! Both versions include the complete Unicode Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, with localization for Moldovan and Romanian.

The Legal typeface family grew out a sans serif project that Hellmut G. Bomm began in the 1970s (his HGB Grotesk). This refined, industrial type family is well suited for short amounts of text, headlines, corporate identity and logo design. In small sizes, the typeface works like many other sans serifs, but with better differentiation between characters. The Legal family includes oldstyle figures and true italics.

The inspiration for this typeface was found tucked away in what is arguably the worst book of advertising clip art ever published (cleverly entitled The Advertising Cartoon Clip Art Book from 1971). It’s so bad, it’s good—at least at getting your attention. Both versions of this font include the complete Latin 1252 and CE 1250 character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

One in the series of fonts called Whiz-Bang Wood Type, intended to be set large and tight. Dime Box is bold and boxy, and creates an interesting visual flow with its notched serifs. Named after a small town in Texas. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 Latin and Unicode 1250 Central European character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

A Victorian face named Oakwood provided the pattern for this decorative little number, with its swirls and curls guaranteed to delight boys and girls, saints and churls, and dogs and squirrels…well, maybe not the last pair, but you get the idea. All versions of this font include the Unicode 1250 Central European character set in addition to the standard Unicode 1252 Latin set.

A poster circa 1930s-40s designed for the WPA Federal Art Project promoted free band concerts at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York. Its headline (“Free Band Concerts”) was hand lettered in a dual line Art Deco sans serif design. Now recreated digitally, the font takes its name after the poster’s topic. Band Concert JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A 1910 collection of piano sheet music called “Presser’s Economy Group” had that name hand lettered in a fancy serif lettering style that could fall somewhere between Art Nouveau and semi-calligraphic. No matter the label you attach to the style, it makes for a wonderful digital type revival. The end result is Piano Music JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The letterforms for this typeface are pretty much standard block gothic, but its prismatic treatment features a twist: the letters appear to be lit from below rather than above, which is usually the norm. The result is a perfect choice for dramatic headlines. This font contains the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Lodestone is a sans serif decorative typeface, and was created by Steve Jackaman (ITF) in 2017. The original design was known as ‘Marvin,’ and was created by Face Photosetting (London) in the early 1970’s. Since the name ‘Marvin’ was in use by another foundry at time of publication, ‘Lodestone’ was born. Lodestone has a clean, retro feel, and is electrifying at display sizes.

Unger Script is a script design which is obviously based on H. Matheis' Slogan typeface designed for Ludwig & Mayer in 1957. This very expressive script design is defined by its widely swinging upper case and its quite narrowly designed lower case characters. Ralph M. Unger redrew and digitized this font exclusively for profonts in 2001. His work is based on artwork taken from old font catalogues.

The Kaktis collection features eleven typefaces that have spikes or spines. Some have short spikes, some long, some sparse spines and others abundant spikes. They are novelty fonts with limited uses, but there can be times when a typeface of this sort may be appropriate, perhaps for a sharp rebuke or a pointed reminder. These faces were constructed in the mid 1990s using a font distortion program.

The Chromium Yellow family is based, very loosely, on Electro-type Serif, designed by John Wu of Hong Kong’s Archetype foundry. The rather quirky serifs have been removed and a few odd letter treatment have been amended to produce a smooth, techno-friendly family of faces. This font contains the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

This elegant offering is based on a typeface originally called "Design", from Barnhart Brothers & Spindler’s Specimen Catalog Number 9, published in the first decade of the twentieth century. This version has been fine-tuned to set tight, and is suitable for headlines, subheads, and limited amounts of body copy. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

Developed by Adrian Frutiger for Bauer in 1966, Serifa is a slabserif based on the principles that led to the success of Frutiger’s 1956 sanserif, Univers. Glypha, designed by Frutiger for Stempel in 1979, is a version of Serifa with a moderately larger x-height; Stempel has paid royalties on Glypha to Neufville since 1984. Serifa® font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Although not credited, the inspiration for this typeface, originally called "Dancer", has all the earmarks of the work of legendary lettering artist Alf Becker. Creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky, but not in the least ooky, this monocase face is just what the doctor ordered; Dr Frankenstein, that is. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

This delightfully playful font is based on a single-stroke pen font from the 1922 tome Heberling’s Basic Lettering, and elements of composition, color harmony, gilding, embossing-processes, etc. by Walter A. Heberling. Swoopy, loopy, but never poopy, this font delivers on the fun. This font contains the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Because of the need for a new condensed serif font family, Jack Yan created this individualistic style of typefaces complete with one of the largest collections of unusual ligatures available at the time of launch in the mid-1990s. As well as the usual selection of double-f and ct, JY&A has provided gr, gt, ty, and other ligatures for JY Integrity Roman and Italic.

Pochoir is a sweet stencil antiqua typeface with round and thick serifs. Once, on a university trip to Paris, Yanone saw some spray-stencil street art. This inspired him to redraw Underware’s Dolly (with permission) in a spray-stencil style, making many adjustments to weight and character shapes to bring about Pochoir. The art form of stencils have first appeared in Paris in the 1980s.

Ross George in his numerous Speedball chapbooks called the pattern for this typeface Stunt Roman. A studious observer may discern that many of the wackier letterforms were tamed to produce the popular font University Roman; however, this version remains unapoligetically true to the original. All versions of this font include the Unicode 1250 Central European character set in addition to the standard Unicode 1252 Latin set.