a fifities style font

The model for Deco Moderne JNL was the hand lettered title on the sheet music cover of "Did You Ever See A Dream Walking" (from the 1933 Paramount musical "Sitting Pretty" starring Jack Oakie, Jack Haley and Ginger Rogers). The typeface is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The movie poster for the 1936 film “Dodsworth” had its title hand lettered in a thin Art Deco sans serif with a mix of both stylized and squared characters. Expanding on this unusual lettering combination, the final results became Drama Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Deco Neue Wilde is a filter font based on Deco, an original Open Window classic. It sort of speaks for itself but it reminds me of a lava lamp and the countless shapes that you could waste time watching appear.

a naive typeface from Art Deco ages

A hand lettered Art Deco ‘stencil’ design used in various ads for “Holiday” and other Pathé films was found in the July 22, 1930 issue of “The Film Daily”. Similar in style to Futura Black and other like designs, it is now available as Deco Holiday JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

A quirky and unusual Art Deco monoline typeface can be found within the pages of the Esterbrook Drawlet Pen instruction book [circa the 1940s]. Drawlet was the direct competitor to Speedball Lettering pen nibs. This unusual type design of varying width and character shapes is now available digitally as Oddly Deco JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Family Deco JNL was inspired by the bold Art Deco hand lettering of the movie credits for the 1936 Laurel and Hardy comedy “Our Relations”, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The hand lettered word ‘puzzles’ from the box cover of a 1940s set of metal “connected” puzzle pieces manufactured by the A.C. Gilbert Company was the initial typographic model, but some additions and changes were made. Instead of the right side of the ‘P’ being a semi-circle, it was changed to a more conservative ‘’squared’ look. After drawing out all of the necessary glyphs, the overall height of the characters was extended to make the letters and numbers appear taller and narrower. The end result is Narrow Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

This decorative, scalloped thick-and-thin Art Deco type design is one of the many inspirations found within the pages of the 1934 French lettering book “L'Art du Tracé Rationnel de la Lettre”. Now in digital format, Fancy Deco JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

ArtDeco Neue was design to give a strong characteristic to the titles of the Portuguese Art Magazine. From classic sans fonts (usual used by artists and galleries) this font developed with the double geometric lines of Art Deco architecture creating a contemporary design. The final result of each word depends of the choices the designer makes for each glyph.

Solid Deco JNL was modeled after a small sign with the word "restaurant" in an unusual Art Deco solid lettering style. It was spotted within the same image of the Lenox Lounge in New York which gave forth the neon letters that became Sign Sans JNL.

A whimsical array of deco pointers (up/down/left/right) - great for adding directions or pointers to documents, maps, posters, greetings, or simply used as decorative elements. See also 4Point Florals and 4Point GreekFret.

Sheet music for the tune "Put Your Arms Around Me Honey" (from the 1937 film "Coney Island" starring Betty Grable, George Montgomery and Cesar Romero) has the song title hand lettered in a condensed Art Deco sans serif design. This became the basis for Deco Nights JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. For trivia buffs, the song was written by Junie McCree and Albert Von Tilzer and was first featured in the Broadway show "Madame Sherry" in 1910 and was revived for a second time in the 1949 Judy Garland -Van Johnson film "In the Good Old Summertime".

A June 18, 1929 issue of the Hollywood trade paper “The Film Daily” ran an ad for a film called “The Power House”. The film’s title was hand lettered in an extra bold sans serif design with strong Art Deco influences. This is now available digitally as Deco Power JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

a naive art deco font

The dreams that you dare to dream really can come true when you perk up your headlines with this re-imagining of Saul Bass's 1982 glitzy Deco classic, Rainbow Bass. For best results at large sizes, choose the TrueType version, rendered at a full 2,048 UPM. Both versions include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, as well as localization for Moldovan and Romanian.

Habana Deco ML was inspired by a hand-lettered sign on the stucco exterior of a small pharmacy in modern-day city of Havana, Cuba. It, in turn, was based on the fat-faced Art Deco lettering of the late 20s and early 30s, especially the Futurismo posters out of Italy, as well as alphabets designed in The Netherlands, France, USA and even the Soviet Union. There are 24 stylistic alternate glyphs (SALT), many inspired by a variety of these sources, including a couple from the sign in the front of the Congress Hotel in South Beach, Miami. The others features of the Habana Deco include 363 glyphs, 184 kerning pairs (KERN), 14 ornaments and shapes (ORNM) and 15 discretionary ligatures (DLIG). This is a font with which you can have fun. The zip package includes two versions of the font at no extra charge. There is an OTF version which is in Open PS (Post Script Type 1) format and a TTF version which is in Open TT (True Type)format. Use whichever works best for your applications.

Hand lettering found across the sheet music cover of 1931's "Bend Down, Sister" [from the Eddie Cantor film "Palmy Days"] covered a couple of varying Art Deco styles; both made with a round-tipped pen nib. Deco Pen JNL combines the best of both styles into one design that's available in both regular and oblique versions.

An interesting hand lettered example of Art Deco lettering (minus the letter ‘L’) was spotted on Pinterest and served as the inspiration for Deco Sketch JNL. Because there was no attribution as to the age or source of the alphabet, it can only be surmised that it was a scan from a 1930s or 1940s source. The original showed many of the irregularities of pen lettering, and had rounded terminals. The digital version has been redrawn more uniformly with flat terminals. Deco Sketch JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Gramercy Eight JNL is an outline and drop shadow treatment of Crestview Six JNL, inspired by some 1930s-1940s era Art Deco hand lettering spotted on a sales flier for some decorator decals.

Opinion varies regarding the role of Claude Garamond (ca. 1480–1561) in the development of the Old Face font Garamond. What is accepted is the influence this font had on other typeface developments from the time of its creation to the present. Garamond, or Garamont, is related to the alphabet of Claude Garamond (1480–1561) as well as to the work of Jean Jannon (1580–1635 or 1658), much of which was attributed to Garamond. In comparison to the earlier Italian font forms, Garamond has finer serif and a generally more elegant image. The Garamond of Jean Jannon was introduced at the Paris World’s Fair in 1900 as Original Garamond, whereafter many font foundries began to cast similar types. The famous Stempel Garamond interpretation of the 1920s remains true to the original Garamond font with its typical Old Face characteristics. The bold italic was a modern addition at the end of the 1920s and the small caps provided an alternative to the standard capital letters. In the mid 1980s, a light version was added to Stempel Garamond. Since its appearance, Stempel Garamond has been one of the most frequently used text fonts.

Eat More Fruit JNL is an odd name for a typeface, but then again the lettering style of the font is just as unusual. Named for a 1940s-era poster espousing "Put more pep in your step... eat more fruit", the lettering (although Art Deco in nature) also evokes images of 1960s and 1970s hippie-era concert posters.

Cabriolet is a connected geometric script re-interpretation inspired by old chromo emblems of Chevy truck Apache of 1960. With three weight variables, it can be used in logos, games and graphic related to cars, automotive, American, Detroit, Art Deco, 1940, 1950, 1960, vintage, retro, classic and old machines. Can be expandable using underscore for connect words or expanding between letters space.

Add more flair to the holiday season with Fontazia Christmas Tree 2 featuring 62 elegantly simple tree illustrations. These stylish tree motifs are sure to add elegance to all your holiday designs.

A whimsical array of pointers designed with semi-traditional Greek fret pattern (up/down/left/right) - great for adding directions or pointers to documents, maps, posters, greetings, or simply used as decorative elements. See also 4Point Deco and 4Point Florals.

Fancy Antique Display is a uppercase display font inspired by French decorative alphabets from the 1940's and 1950's. Perfect for headlines, logos and everything above the body.

Aside from his 1920s and 1960 editions of Sam Welo’s “Studio Handbook – Letter and Design for Artists and Advertisers”, Welo also published “Lettering - Practical and Foreign” in 1930. A monoline Art Deco Alphabet from that book is now available digitally as Ladies Wear JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

In the 1960 edition of Sam Welo’s “Studio Handbook – Letter and Design for Artists and Advertisers” you’ll find a bold, hand lettered Art Deco sans serif typeface designed by Welo with a decidedly 1930s-1940s look. This is now available as Pastry Shop JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

The French publication “La Lettre Dans le Decor et La Publicite Modernes” (“The Letter in the Modern Décor and Advertising”) was a 24-page booklet showcasing the then-current trends of the time (circa late 1930s-early 1940s). On one page was found a squared, extra bold sans serif alphabet set with strong Art Nouveau influences, yet it was ahead of its time by taking on the look and feel of 1980s techno typography. They say “everything old is new again”, and Nouveau Techno JNL is now available digitally in both regular and oblique versions.

This typeface is inspired from the old display fonts that used to decorate the world around us, but just because we don't see such beautiful signage these days, doesn't mean we should lose the great typefaces used. Foreman is a condensed serif display typeface, with hard geometric lines inspired from fonts used in the 1930s and 1940s, and very much used by the American Art Deco movement.

A large assortment of stencil lettering guides made in the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's have been a treasure trove of wonderful "lost" stencil type designs. Schoolmarm JNL continues this series by font designer Jeff Levine.

Online auctions continue to be a surprising wealth of font design inspiration. In this instance, a number of silk embroidered Art Deco initials inside inverted triangles inspired Deco Pennant Initials JNL. The uppercase version is white lettering on a black background – similar to the originals. On the lowercase keys is a set of initials that are black on white with a black border. Since the inverted triangles resemble pennants, there’s a solid black blank on the left parenthesis key and a outlined blank one on the right parenthesis key. In this way, the initials could be used for monograms or interspersed with the blanks to form short banner messages.

Take a classic hand lettered Art Deco alphabet, add in a treatment of dual straight vertical lines and the resulting typeface is Double Line Deco JNL.

DGS Art Deco Greek is a unique typeface breaking all boundaries available in Latin and Greek scripts. It can be used in a wide range of projects including invitations, theatre and cinematic productions, branding, logos , adverts and much more.