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.

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.

A rather narrow and compact design, Monotype Clearface combines both old style and antique characteristics. The lowercase letters are tall, the ascenders and descenders quite short. The intention was to produce a typeface that was easy to read in small sizes, hence the name. Monotype Clearface Bold was first cut for mechanical composition in 1922, and was based on the Clearface Gothic design created by Morris Fuller Benton for ATF in 1910. Although designed as a text face, Monotype Clearface is now more commonly used in advertising and display work.

The Federal Art Project division of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) employed numerous artists, musicians, actors and other creative sorts in a effort to help many survive the Great Depression of the 1930s. One of the posters created by this project was for a "Card Party and Barter Benefit" with proceeds going toward the Nassau Art Teachers Benefit Fund - taking place at the Coca-Cola plant in Rockville Centre, New York. East Village JNL was derived from this poster, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Architype Crouwel is a collection of typefaces created in collaboration with Wim Crouwel, following his agreement with The Foundry, to recreate his experimental alphabets as digital fonts. Crouwel's most recognized work was for the Van Abbe and Stedelijk museums (1954 –72) where he established his reputation for radical, grid-based design. Architype Vierkant was developed from the few letterforms that Crouwel created for an opening spread in a 1972 Drupa catalogue, on the theme ‘typo vision international’ – this single reference showed an interesting interplay of the experimental ideas underpinning his controversial ‘new alphabet’ and Fodor.

Goudy Sans Bold was originally designed by Fredric Goudy in 1922 as a less formal "gothic" and finished in 1929. The light was designed in 1930 and the Light Italic in 1931. Alternate letterforms are included in these three Goudy designs which are digitized true to their original design. In 2006, designer Colin Kahn drew "LTC Goudy Sans Regular" which is a medium weight version intended for text purposes. Kahn has also designed an experimental "LTC Goudy Sans Hairline" which has a skeletal almost mono-width stroke and results in a surprisingly elegant display face.

The inspiration for this font made its first appearance in the 1897 American Type Founders specimen book, under the name "Lithotint". As the name suggests, the original was tinted gray (diagonal lines formed the body); this version is solid and spooky, too. The font contains a few ghostly graphics, including ghosts at the bracket positions, a haunted house at the backslash position, and a scary backdrop at the ASCII tilde and ASCII circumflex positions. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Edda Pro is another art nouveau revival by German type designer Ralph M. Unger. Edda Pro is based on Edda, designed in 1900 by Heinrich Heinz Heune for Schelter & Giesecke, Leipzig, Germany. Unger redesigned the beautiful forms, completed and expanded this outline caps-only typeface for the profonts library. Also, he added a nice collection of very useful frames and ornaments in EPS format supplied with the OTF version of Edda Pro.Edda Pro can be used for anything in advertising, signmaking, posters, restaurants, hairdressing, paint, wallpaper and so on.

Brody’s fonts borrow elements from both Art Deco and non-Western styles. His designs received international recognition for their innovative, computer-oriented style, reaching almost cult status. Four original Brody fonts are available from Linotype Library GmbH: Insignia, Industria-Solid, Industria Inline and Arcadia. For your convenience, we have gathered all four into one package. Insignia has the basic forms of constructed grotesque fonts and was influenced by the New Typography of the Bauhaus during the 1930s. Its image reflects the Zeitgeist of that age, suggesting technology and progress.

While searching online for vintage type inspirations, an image was spotted of an old letterhead for a steel manufacturing company. The hand lettering of the word 'Ludlum' only offered D,L,M and E as visual examples, but from this Jeff Levine has designed Eckhardt Dualine JNL - a Deco-flavored dual-line type font. As with a number of other releases that emulate hand-lettering or sign painting, Jeff has named this font in honor of his good friend, the late Albert Eckhardt, Jr.; who ran Allied Signs in Miami from 1959 until his passing.

Tucked inside the November 5, 1927 issue of a German signpainters' trade paper was a single sheet headed Der Schilder und Schriftenmaler, which featured an alphabet called "Neue Fraktur". An exuberant (if somewhat unconventional) combination of Art Deco sensibilities and blackletter forms, the font retains its freshness, even today. Included in this version are Deco bishops fingers at the bar and broken bar positions, and a styling, horn-blowing herald at ASCII circumflex and tilde positions. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin and 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan) character sets.

Introducing RETRO-86 - A modern take on old-school computer graphic fonts. RETRO-86 was inspired by the low-resolution computer graphics of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s seen in classic games and on computer screens and interfaces. RETRO-86 features a beautifully limited, blocky design and is perfect for projects relating to the tech industry, the gaming world, and nostalgic work from the late 20th century. RETRO-86 is also a hyper versatile typeface. It comes in 2 complementary styles (regular, and shadow) and features 8 weight options each!

Klagia is a font inspired by the advertising media back in 1970. The glory of printing and handpainted signs and visuals. Emphasizing the bold, loud, yet poppin' and modern retro vibes that will be stylish in any era. It makes Klagia a font that you need to have in your design arsenal. Contains a bunch of Ligatures and Stylistic Alternates to give a distinctive vibe in every message conveyed using Klagia font. Perfectly fit for logo, branding, advertising, poster, food and beverages, restaurant, book cover, album artwork, decoration, sign painting, and many more.

The compendium Alphabete: ein Schriftaltas von A bis Z listed the pattern for this family of faces under the name Chicago which, owing to the number of other faces using the same name, makes its origins difficult to ascertain. Nonetheless, its soft lines and round forms have a timeless appeal makes this family an excellent choice for both headlines and text use. 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.

The Techno sound of the 1990s, a personal computer, a font creation software and some inspiration had been the sources to the F2F (Face2Face) font series. Alessio Leonardi and his friends had the demand to create new unusual faces that should be used in the leading german techno magazine "Frontpage". Even typeset in 6 point to nearly unreadability it was a pleasure for the kids to read and decrypt the messages. About Al Retto: "Al" means "Alessio Leonardi" and Retto "straight", but if you read it as an italian world means "in the a**".

Portsmouth Second Fleet is the rag tag, wild bunch companion to Portsmouth. It is a strong, sturdy typeface with historical character. Its inspiration comes from the height and strength of the wooden tall ships that sailed into port in their day. With caps and small caps, this typeface is great for headlines or subheads for design projects that need a historical or retro feel, such as from the 1940s and earlier. Two different styles that can be layered allow for different colored drop shadows, outlines and fill for even more customization.

Supaduper PB is a font inspired by some wonderfully funky hand-lettered greeting cards from the 1980's. The delightfully awkward and animated playfulness of this lettering style was maintained throughout the fleshing out from the original specimens - and I think you're going to have a lot of fun typing with this. Even if you haven't seen these old greeting cards, the lettering style has a familiar visual to it. Bring back a little nostalgia, add a little wonkiness, or just have fun typing with Supaduper PB today!

The evocative and original Retrofit is based on typefaces of the 1940s and 50s, which extolled the virtues of American products in glossy magazines for the new suburban consumer. Oversized terminal bulbs and occasional slab serifs lend a rhythm and a bouncing baseline provides just the "zing" to spice up that bland typographic treatise. Retrofit's easy familiarity can be seen on children's books, games, food packaging, and other places where a kid friendly note is needed. Retrofit has been adapted by Quickutz for their punched letter cutting tool, and re-named "Maggie".

Originally designed by American type designer Morris Fuller Benton in 1933, Agency Gothic is a wonderful, narrow, squarish art deco typeface. I was commissioned by Publish magazine to create digital versions of Agency Gothic Open and Agency Gothic Condensed for a redesign in 1990. Since then, I have added four other styles. Agency Gothic CT is uppercase only and supports most European languages that use the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets. The Agency Gothic CT family is available in six weights/styles: Light, Medium, Bold, Condensed, Inline, and Open.

Poplar is an Adobe Originals typeface designed by Barbara Lind in 1990 for the Adobe Wood Type series. Poplar, a Gothic condensed, was designed from photographs taken by Rob Roy Kelly of the one surviving copy of an 1830 William Leavenworth type specimen book. Leavenworth possessed unusual artistic abilities, and his treatment of the letterform counters as narrow slits made it the only wood type of its kind displayed during the nineteenth century. Poplar is an excellent display face, its simplicity making it useful for a broad range of work.

Decode is a retro styled font, referencing the art deco typography from the 1920's and 30's. The font is designed to be in keeping with the art deco style but with a contemporary and modern finish making it a stylish font for all kinds of work. The typeface is available in 3 complimentary styles. Use one on its own as a headline font or combine all three to create eye catching typographic displays. Each version comes with deco styled caps with an alternate uppercase to add extra variation to your work.

Say hello to a new Typoforge member! Nisse is a display font family that consists of 4 styles (including italics). The regular and rough versions differ in the amount of wear. It’s inspired by Rex typeface first published by „The Jan Idzikowski and Co. Foundry“ in 1930. Nisse has a high amount of detail making it ideal for large prints and poster design. It is specified by a huge amount of automatic alternates. Each basic latin letter has five versions, the numbers have thee versions and extended latin letters have two versions.

This sans serif type was completed in 1985, a descendant of the earlier serifed Congress shown for the first time at the Association Typographique International Congress, which proved to be so popular in 1980 at Kiel; designed to present a style equally appealing in European languages. Many characters are more condensed than is usual, while others have been exaggerated. The concept being to bring an equality of importance to the whole, producing a collection of International characters working together in harmony on the page-a common aim that Europeans wish of any Congress.

The English roundhand has always occupied the central position in the group of faces appropriate to the social printing handled by engravers, and their contemporary imitators, thermographers. At the end of the nineteenth century when engraving was mechanised by the pantographic engraving machine, the traditional roundhands found their way onto pantographic pattern plates. Embassy is a traditional roundhand of vigorous contrast with straightforward capitals with ball terminals; it was transferred from such an engravers’ pattern plate to the Fotosetter at Intertype about 1955. Alphatype’s Yorktown is similar, but appears to have less contrast.

The Teapot Dome scandal was a 1920s bribery scandal involving Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall. Fall leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming [along with some California reserves] at low rates with no competitive bidding. The San Francisco Examiner for Feb. 20, 1924 ran the two line headline “U.S. Senator Named as Oil Stock Speculator; Whitney to Face Quiz Today on Slush Fund”. The headline was set in a condensed, slightly squared sans serif typeface. This is now available as Special Edition JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Designed by Les Usherwood. Argus is a flared serif font family. Its analog form was designed by Les Usherwood (Typsettra) in the 1980’s, and Paul Hickson (P&P Hickson) and Steve Jackaman (ITF) designed the digital version exclusively for the Red Rooster Collection in 1992. Argus is an expressive, graceful typeface that was inspired by Baroque typography. Its diamond-shaped punctuation shares similarities with other glyphic typefaces, such as Arthur Baker’s ‘Baker Signet.’ The font family gives a beautiful gravitas to any project, whether it be packaging, motion picture, or magazines.

Kopik is a modern hand-drawn script inspired by the 1960's architectural handwriting style practised by draftsmen. Originated using a Copic 1.0 Multiliner pen, then traced digitally using a stylus and tablet to help reduce imperfections. The result is a simple, readable, monolinear typeface with a marker pen quality suitable for a wide range of written applications. Details include 440 characters, three weights with matching italics, alternative a, g, and y four numerals variations. Opentype features inferiors, superiors, fractions and language support covering Western, South and Central Europe.

Pritchard is the work of British designer Martin Wait, a capital, condensed sans serif font inspired by the geometric styles of the 1920s Soviet Constructivist movement. Despite unusual letterforms, Pritchard remains legible and effective in large display sizes. Two fonts make up the Pritchard family: Pritchard Regular and Pritchard Line Out. Pritchard Regular is a caps-only font, but Pritchard Line -- a bold, open font suitable for a wide variety of headline applications -- does include lowercase letters. A similar font from Linotype is Linotype Reducta. Unlike Pritchard Regular, Linotype Reducta's character set contains lowercase letters."

This family was inspired from a lot of 1848-1850 French engraved documents reproducing handwritten texts talking about the Paris' insurrection days in June 1848 (described by Victor Hugo in Les misérables) . It seems that all were first written using quill pens, as the strokes are too much heavy and bold for metal pens and even though the engraver work is very fine. We have added only a few characters, most of them were present in the originals. The TTF and OTF versions are enriched with more than 50 ligatures or alternate characters.

This font set was created in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art to coincide with the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary. This font set includes faithfully reproduced letterforms digitized directly from images of impressions made by Benjamin Franklin and his printing office circa 1750. The printing conditions of the time involved handmade paper with textured surfaces and handmade inks which were hand-applied for each impression. By digitizing the printed type in its real-life state, an authentic look of Franklin's actual work is achieved and, ultimately, has a timeless appeal.

Thorowgood was originally released by the Stephenson Blake typefoundry in the UK. The types were first cut by the English typefounder Robert Thorne, predecessor of William Thorowgood, and first shown in his specimen books in the early nineteenth century. The fat face was revived in roman (1953) and italic. The S and the C appear to be smaller than the other capitals. Most serifs are flat and thin horizontals. In the italic the main strokes of h, k, m, n, and r are curved inwards at the foot.