Beginning in January, 1932, Becker, at the request of then-editor E. Thomas Kelly, supplied SIGNS of the Times magazine’s new Art and Design section with an alphabet a month, a project predicted to last only two years. Misjudging the popularity of the “series”, it instead ran for 27 years, ending finally two months before Becker’s death in 1959, for a grand total of 320 alphabets, a nearly perfect, uninterrupted run. In late 1941, almost ten years after the first alphabet was published, 100 of those alphabets were compiled and published in bookform under the title, “100 Alphabets”, by Alf R. Becker. And so, as published in August, 1937, The Fontry presents the truly "modern" version of Becker’s 187th alphabet, Moderne Caps, complete with OpenType features and Central European language support.

General Chang JNL is one of a number of fonts redrawn by Jeff Levine from the creative output of the late Alf R. Becker. Becker's alphabets were a monthly feature of Signs of the Times Magazine from the 1930s through the 1950s. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media (who also is the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio) for the resource material.

Alf R. Becker was a noted sign painter, designer and the creator of hundreds of unique alphabets which were published in the trade magazine Signs of the Times during the 1930s through the 1950s. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media [and who is also the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati], Jeff Levine received some reference material on Becker's work. Becker displayed many of his type styles within decorative panels—a popular trend in the days when signs were hand-lettered. Using the reference material as a guide, Jeff has re-drawn twenty-six sign panels for adaptation to digital print work. While the designs in themselves are not thoroughly unique to Alf Becker, he has left behind some tangible examples of how sign painters embellished their lettering work. With the use of complementary colors and tones, these panels—joined with vintage lettering - classically recreate the warm and attractive advertising of years ago.

Rabbet is based on the handwriting of Maine furniture designer and maker, Aaron Fedarko. It's friendly, bold, condensed, and slants left. Rabbet's special feature, besides loads of boyish charm, is a load of handwritten fractions as discretionary ligatures. Whether you're curious about woodworking (a rabbet is a type of joint), or you just want a cool, maybe slightly rebellious font, Rabbet is ready to do the work.

Kanona JNL is modeled from one of the numerous alphabets created by the late Alf R. Becker for Signs of the Times magazine from the 1930s through the 1950s. Thanks to a wealth of source material provided by Tod Swormstedt of ST Media (and who is also the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio), Jeff Levine has been redrawing many of these alphabets and presenting them in digital form. The original variations in letter widths from Becker’s hand-painted alphabet have been left intact.

“Tropical Type” was Alf Becker’s 148th submission to “Signs of the Times” magazine (a publication for the sign trade) where for years Becker would provide a monthly lettering design to inspire other sign writers. This particular design has more of a Far East flair to it, and was redrawn digitally as Travel East JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. Special thanks to Tod Swormstedt of the American Sign Museum and S.T. Media Group for providing the sample image from which the font was derived.

Halfway between nineteenth century display wood letters and the American grotesk sans-serif of the early twentieth, we can find Ultramarina, a display font for use in large body headlines, which show its power of attraction to quality food, the country’s legume, and gentlemen with a mustache and apron.

Alf Becker was a master sign painter and lettering stylist who created well over 100 alphabets for a monthly feature in the trade magazine "Sign of the Times" during the 1930s and 1940s. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST pubications for supplying the source material. One of these designs features a modernized version of Old English or "text" lettering making it more legible for sign and show card work. Doing away with extra curves and swashes, this type style is more calligraphic in nature than classic. Modern English JNL was modeled from Becker's original design, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Sunbeam is a new, classy & modern typeface that looks incredible! The contrasting lines and vibrant shapes give sunbeam a sleek and elegant look. Sunbeam is a versatile typeface that's full of character, using optical correction for better legibility, sunbeam is the perfect fit for graphic design, editorial design, magazines, posters, logotypes, brands and corporate design. Sunbeam is designed by Coert De Decker in 2019 and published by Kustomtype Font Foundry.

HWT Aetna is a revival of the sturdy Roman style of wood type most often called simply Aetna. This new digital version by Aaron Bell features four widths all based on the various widths commonly offered by 19th Century wood type manufacturers. In addition, there is a four-layer all-caps version Aetna based on the the famous Wm. Page Chromatic Types, that allows the user the ability to easily create these chromatic streamer and shadow effects. Both the multiple width Aetnas and Streamer component fonts support full Western and Eastern European languages.

Whomp takes its inspiration from the work of an American master in sign painting and alphabet manipulation: Alf Becker . In 1932, Becker began designing a series of alphabets to be published in Signs of the Times magazine at the rate of one alphabet per month. Nine years later, 100 of those alphabets were compiled in one book that became an enormous success among sign painters. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, many Alf Becker alphabets were digitized with blurbs that falsely credit an “Alf Becker typeface”. Alf Becker was not really a typeface kind of guy. He was more of a calligrapher and sign painter. His alphabets were either incomplete or full of variations on different letters, and didn't become typefaces until the digital era. This particular Becker alphabet was quite incomplete. In fact, it wasn't a showing of an alphabet, but words on a poster. Alejandro Paul took the challenge of drawing, digitizing, restructuring, and finally building a complete usable typeface from that partial alphabet. He then extended his pleasure by once again playing with the wonderful possibilities of OpenType. Whomp comes with more than 100 alternates, tons of swashy endings and ligatures, all built into the font and accessible through OpenType palettes in programs that support such features. This is the in-your-face kind of font that stands among other Becker-based alphabets as paying most homage to the vision of this great American artist who saw letters as live ever-changing beings. Whomp is right at home when used on packaging, signage, posters, and entertainment related products.

This sometimes-top-heavy, sometime-bottom-heavy, sometimes-centered typecase is based on an old Photolettering face designed by the irrepressible Dave West, originally called "Nickelodeon". That name was already taken, so I chose another with a nod to the 1953 film starring Leslie Caron. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.