Samuel Welo’s “Studio Handbook – Letter and Design for Artists and Advertisers” was a go-to source of inspiration for generations of layout artists, graphic designers and sign painters. An interesting example of free-form pen lettering was found amongst the pages of one edition and it has now been recreated as a digital typeface called Nouveau Cartoon JNL; available in both regular and oblique versions.

Found within the pages of the 1927 edition of the “Welo Studio Handbook - Letter and Design for Artist and Advertisers” is an elegant Art Deco multi-line alphabet. Digitally redrawn as Theater Alley JNL, it is available in both regular and oblique versions. The font takes its name from that of a street in New York, although the street’s name uses the old-fashioned spelling of “theatre”.

A 1930s hand-lettered poster for the play "The Cradle Will Rock", put on by the WPA (Works Progress Administration) Federal Theater Project is the source material for Talent Show JNL; available in both regular and oblique versions. Originally, the "R" and "L" had fish hook bends, but those two letters were revised to be more traditional in structure. The obvious Art Deco influence, along with what sign painters refer to as "stovepipe lettering" (straight lines with curved [bent] corners) is a simple, clean approach to retro-influenced titling.

During the heydey of automobile travel hundreds of motels, motor courts and tourist cabins sprung up along the roadways in order to offer weary drivers (and most often their families) rest with a night's lodging. Tourist Cabin JNL takes the inline portion from the inline font Asbury Park JNL and creates this pleasant monoline design. The original design inspiration (from which the inline portion of the letters was taken) was a 1930s WPA (Works Progress Administration) Federal art project poster with the hand-lettered words “Work with Care”

DIN stands for Deutsche Industrienorm, German Industrial Standard. In 1936, the German Standard Committee settled upon DIN 1451 as the standard font for the areas of technology, traffic, administration, and business. The committee chose a sans serif font because of its legibility and easy-to-write forms. This font was not seen in advertisements and other artistically oriented uses, and there were disagreements about its aesthetic qualities. Nevertheless, this font was seen everywhere on German towns and traffic signs and hence made its way into advertisements because of its ease of recognition.

Sanitation JNL is a bold Art Deco sans design inspired by some stylized hand lettering on a 1930s-era WPA (Works Progress Administration) poster and is available in both regular and oblique versions. The topic of the poster was "Your home is not complete without a sanitary unit" and that was recommended by the State Department of Public Health. A "sanitary unit" is the formal name for what rural folks called an "outhouse", and it's presumed the target group were homeowners not hooked up to major sewer lines such as in those rural areas.

On the Town JNL is a reworking of Parks Department JNL, giving it a classic "solid black Art Deco treatment". The wide monoline font of the original design was inspired by hand lettering on a WPA (Works Progress Administration) poster. Art Deco typography and the streamlined style it embraced often conjures up images of New York City in the 1930s and 1940s, thus On the Town JNL is named for the classic MGM musical starry Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munchen that was filmed on location in "the city that never sleeps".

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.

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All citizens having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the Comicraft Authority, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for Wuxtry! Wuxtry! is now kerning. Tempered and tested to tackle typography in troubled times, this companion to Extra! Extra! affords each and every proclamation, declaration and attestation with the air and veracity of New England Newsies in the 1900s!

According to Wikipedia, a "clip joint" is an establishment, usually a strip club or night club (often claiming to offer adult entertainment or bottle service) in which customers are tricked into paying excessive amounts of money, for surprisingly low-grade goods or services - or sometimes, nothing - in return. These establishments were rampant during the prohibition years. However, the inspiration for Clip Joint JNL comes from a more positive source - a WPA (Works Progress Administration) poster advertising "The Lure of the National Parks". A bold, classic Art Deco design, it typifies the modern and streamlined approach to lettering in the 1930s and 1940s.

Samuel Welo was a sign painter who had published in the 1920s and again in 1960 his “Studio Handbook – Letter and Design for Artists and Advertisers”, prolifically hand lettering all of the type style examples within the pages of the publication. In 1930 Welo also published “Lettering - Practical and Foreign”. From this book comes a thick-and-thin hand lettered Art Deco alphabet – now available digitally as Sightseeing Tour JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Another tip of the hat to master draftsman Samuel Welo. His famous Studio Handbook was hand-lettered throughout, and provided the inspirations for many of Nick's favorite fonts. This little number is based on the unnamed style Mr. Welo used for much of his paragraph text. Use it when you want to convey homespun warmth and a handmade feel. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets.

Presenting… a Western style alphabet from the 1960 edition of Samuel Welo’s “Studio Handbook for Artists and Advertisers”… Extra bold, featuring slab serifs and concave corners, this type style could easily have been found on building signage in the Old West… but in redrawing it digitally, it’s been named Modern West JNL because at one time, this would have been considered a modern style of lettering. Modern West JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Samuel Welo was a sign painter who had published in the 1920s and again in 1960 editions of his “Studio Handbook – Letter and Design for Artists and Advertisers”. In-between, in 1930 Welo also published “Lettering - Practical and Foreign”. Within the pages is an Art Deco outline slab serif design using multiple thin lines to create an “incised” or “engraved” look within the characters. This intriguing type style is now available as Guest Invitation JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Based on a specimen of an obscure and uncredited old face called Kitterland, Hamlet is one of those curiosities hardly ever noticed in the world of modern fonts, the kind that infuses a variety of historic Blackletter and calligraphy traits in an otherwise Roman alphabet. Such typefaces, what few of them exist, are almost always classified by typophiles as traditional decorative Roman alphabets. We beg to differ. We think such hybrids are fascinating enough to deserve a classification of their own. And we think today's aspiring letterers and type designers would benefit from paying special attention to this kind of hybrid alphabet, not only because it has much more hand than machine in it, but also because it is a prime example of how to succeed in mixing different lettering techniques into one self-contained and distinctly functional alphabet. As in any efficient mixture of lettering methods, Hamlet ended up with characters that are uniquely its own, such as the cupped A, M, V, W and Y, the very luscious and inviting curves on the arms of E, F, L and T, both single- and double-story forms of the a, and the humblest, friendliest g and y ever. A dozen alternate characters are sprinkled throughout the character set, so check out the map for a few pleasant surprises. We also made the Handtooled and Headstone styles because we thought these friendly forms were just crying out for such treatments. The Handtooled version turned out quite lovely, if we may say so ourselves, perhaps even better than the main font. The Headstone version is available as a free bonus to those who purchase the complete Hamlet package. All Hamlet styles come with lining figures as well as old style ones. Hamlet comes in all popular font formats. The OpenType fonts contain push-button swapping alternates and figures, which come in handy in software programs that support this kind of thing.

Rahman font is based on the idea of reflecting the personality of the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman in a typeface design. This sans serif font shows the founding father of Malaysia as a modern, simple, open-minded, uncomplicated and straightforward person. The font is suitable for posters, labels as well as book covers and paper printing.

Orgovan is based on calligraphic script models lettered with a flat brush, which have been a mainstay in the sign makers' and display artists' handbooks since the beginning of the 1960s. Careful adjustments to the construction of the character shapes made the glyphs more open. This ensures that the face is well legible in small sizes, making it suitable for more demanding typographic applications. The Punk and Rounded variations of the base model offer an even broader range of possible applications, while the Fat Cap, Flower Power and Hairy cuts are contemporary decorative alternatives.

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.

Frank H. Atkinson's book Atkinson Sign Painting was published in 1909. For decades, this book served as the manual for sign painters - a handbook for hand lettering. Atkinson’s book described techniques, layouts and several sample alphabets. Modernized Ideal Classic was inspired by one of these demonstration alphabets. Although Classic has its beginnings in art deco, it is very comfortable in any period or style of design. It is most appropriate in headline and display text, poster copy and signs. We've included some nice stylistic alternates and an interesting array of ligatures.

Made in La Chaux-de-Fonds (Switzerland), Hyper Schlag is born while the designer drinks a beer with friends. One of his fellow beverage partner wears a sweatshirt written in embroidery. The text is quite clumsy, at least this is what he saw. This is how the most spontaneous font ever designed by Bisou is born. Hyper Schlag is thought from ground up to give a strong feeling of friendliness. Clumsy, naive, playful, this handwriting font is best suitable slogans of sweet revolution. It works perfectly with short texts, punk music album covers or underground film festival posters. Be aware that it is not recommended for police stations or administrative office signboard.

Oneself is Handwritten Font This font describes about girly, feminist, elegant, dynamic, humanist, easy to use and will bring a good harmony when the letters are connected and paired each other. FEATURES - Uppercase and Lowercase letters - Support Ligatures - Numbering and Punctuations - Multilingual Support - Works on PC or Mac USE Oneself works great in any branding, logos, magazines, invitation, wedding designs, social media posts, advertisements, product packaging, product designs, label, photography, watermark, invitation, stationery, quotes and any projects that need handwriting taste. Enjoy using! Thanks. HIRO.std

Oneself is Handwritten Font This font describes about girly, feminist, elegant, dynamic, humanist, easy to use and will bring a good harmony when the letters are connected and paired each other. FEATURES - Uppercase and Lowercase letters - Support Ligatures - Numbering and Punctuations - Multilingual Support - Works on PC or Mac USE Oneself works great in any branding, logos, magazines, invitation, wedding designs, social media posts, advertisements, product packaging, product designs, label, photography, watermark, invitation, stationery, quotes and any projects that need handwriting taste. Enjoy using! Thanks. HIRO.std

Eve Adam is a lovely script font. This font describes about elegant, classy, dynamic, stylish, catchy, feminist, easy to use and will bring a good harmony when the letters are connected and paired each other. FEATURES - Support Opentype Features - Support Ligatures - Uppercase beginning swash - Lowercase beginning and ending swash - Numbering and Punctuations - PUA Encoded Characters - Connecting heart - Multilingual Support - Works on PC or Mac USE Delissa Beauty works great in any wedding invitations, branding, logotype, quotes and any projects that need lovely script taste.

Love Conchetta is a semi casual script font. This font describes about easy going, beautiful, feminist, elegant, dynamic, humanist, easy to use and will bring a good harmony when the letters are connected and paired each other. FEATURES - Support Opentype Features - Support Ligatures - Uppercase - Lowercase - Numbering and Punctuations - Multilingual Support - Works on PC or Mac USE Love Conchetta works great in any branding, logos, magazines, invitation, wedding designs, social media posts, advertisements, product packaging, product designs, label, photography, invitation, stationery, elegant brush, quotes and any projects that need handwriting taste.

Feels so Good is a semi casual script font. This font describes about girly, feminist, elegant, dynamic, humanist, easy to use and will bring a good harmony when the letters are connected and paired each other. FEATURES - Support Opentype Features - Support Ligatures - Uppercase - Lowercase - Numbering and Punctuations - Multilingual Support - Works on PC or Mac USE Feels so Good works great in any branding, logos, magazines, invitation, wedding designs, social media posts, advertisements, product packaging, product designs, label, photography, watermark, invitation, stationery, quotes and any projects that need handwriting taste.

Maat is a modular geometric stencil display font that includes a number of modular pattern characters, and can be used to create designs that echo early Modernism by merely applying letters, patterns and color. Maat is a loose interpretation of a hand lettered alphabet by the late Dutch designer Jurrian Schrofer called Sans Serious which was included in Wim Crouwel's publication Letters of Maat. It is inflected with a bit of influence from British designer Ken Garland's similar lettering form the cover of his textbook, The Graphics Handbook. Maat derives its name from the title of Couwel's booklet.

I have upgraded my existing font software and also bought new font software to play around with. It takes some time getting used to working with it; the upgraded software feels similar to what I am used to, but handles things differently and the new software is intuitive, but comes with its own language and ways of doing things. I spend most days reading the handbooks and watching online tutorials, but I did manage to create a font. Steamed is a hand drawn all caps display font that comes with a whole bunch of accented glyphs (even Vietnamese) to play around with.

The basis for Series A Signage JNL is Highway Gothic; a type style design formally known as the FHWA Series. The font was developed by the United States Federal Highway Administration, and originally consisted of only capital letters and figures. Each Letter designation represented a character width from "A" (condensed) to "F" (wide). Due to poor visibility at high speeds, Series "A" was discontinued. At one point lower case characters were added to the various widths of the design, but this typeface revival is based on the original guidelines specified in the 1948 (reprinted 1952) book "Standard Alphabets for Highway Signs" [this was the original name for the FHWA series fonts preceding the eventual name change to Highway Gothic]. Unlike the original, Series A Signage JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

As the name, Clarina Sans is sans serif type family with two weight plus matching italics. Clarina Sans was desinged in 2018/19, influenced by geometrics typeface from handbook and newspapers in 80's during studying that have a good legibility. Clarina sans with medium to high x-heigh and geometric correction and smoothed corner has more elegant visibility, readable, and save space altogether. Its perfect for book, newspaper, web, logos, magazines, posters, and most other design. Equiped with more than 700 glyphs for eachs cut (latin plus, greek, cyrillic), ligatures, kerning, case sensitive for diacritical mark modifier, Clarina Sans has wide range languages coverage.

I came across an old book called ‘Studio Handbook Letter And Design For Artists And Advertisers’ by Samuel Welo. Samuel Welo was an American advertising calligrapher, typographer and lettering artist, who was most active during the roaring twenties. Lenox Avenue is my version of a set of letters in that book. It was handmade (just like Welo had done). I only had an ABC/abc to work with, so I designed all the remaining glyphs myself. I changed some of the original (and quite quirky) letters to a more contemporary form. The font is named Lenox Avenue, once home of the famous Savoy Ballroom. Comes with all the bells & whistles.

In 1525, Albrecht Dürer, the well known German great artist, was publishing the so-called “Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel und Richtscheyt”, printed in Nuremberg. This handbook explained with numeral figures how to draw with a compass and ruler. A large part is devoted to the drawing of Roman characters, which can be used as decorative initials. We are offering two complete historical initial sets and also have entirely redrawn the missing letters: J, U and W, Eth, Lslash, Thorn and Oslash in the two forms, using the Dürer style. The font may be used with all our Humane and Garalde fonts, like 1543 Humane Jenson or 1592 GLC Garamond and others from the GLC foundry catalog.

Delissa Beauty is a semi casual script font. This font describes about elegant, classy, dynamic, stylish, catchy, feminist, elegant, humanist, easy to use and will bring a good harmony when the letters are connected and paired each other. FEATURES - Support Opentype Features - Support Ligatures - Uppercase - Lowercase - Numbering and Punctuations - PUA Encoded Characters - Fully accessible without additional design software - Multilingual Support - Works on PC or Mac USE Delissa Beauty works great in any branding, logotype, signature logo, magazines, invitation, wedding designs, social media posts, advertisements, product packaging, product designs, label, photography, watermark, invitation, stationery, quotes and any projects that need handwriting taste. Enjoy using! Thanks. HIRO.std

This script font was inspired by a few manuscripts and letters written by French representatives or ministers after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. It is an attempt to offer a typical handwritten script from this period. This font can be used variously as website titles, in the design of posters, fliers and greeting cards, as well as for menus, certificates and letters as a very decorative, elegant and unusual font. This font supports large sizes as well as small ones, remaining clear and easy to read.

Arinar is a well modulated, rounded, humanist sans serif font family based on Brinar. A distant ancestor the basic letterforms is Minister (a Dutch bible font of the 19th century) through my first font, Diaconia. There are many OpenType features with over 600 characters: Caps, lower case, small caps, ligatures, discretionary ligatures, swashes, small cap figures, old style figures, numerators, denominators, accent characters (including CE), ordinal numbers (1st-infinity: lining and oldstyle), and so on. It is designed for text use in body copy.

Years ago, I developed an interest in the Japanese art of dwarfed potted trees, bonsai. I bought some books on the subject from Brooklyn Botanic Garden. In one -- Handbook on Bonsai: Special Techniques (seventh printing, February 1976) -- the type was bad. Old worn lead type, I suspect, spread wide in the tops of characters and disappearing on the bottoms. Two decades later, I came across my Brooklyn Botanic Garden collection and was struck again by this interesting type. Inspired, I made a typeface. Didn't take me long to decide on a name for it, either: a name with a double-meaning, based both on its look and its inspiration. Bonsai, the typeface, has two styles, a roman and a true italic.

Ardone is a well-modulated humanist serif font family with Garalde roots. A distant ancestor is Minister (a German font designed by Fahrenwaldt in 1929) through my first font, Diaconia Old Style. This first style, book, is slightly condensed and very elegant with thin bracketed serifs. There are many OpenType features with over 600 characters: Caps, lower case, small caps, ligatures, discretionary ligatures, swashes, small cap figures, old style figures, numerators, denominators, accent characters (including CE), ordinal numbers (1st-infinity: lining and oldstyle), and so on. Ardone is designed for text use in body copy.

Alexandrya is a subtly modulated block serif font family with a humanist sensibility and all of my personal style for font design. A distant ancestor of the basic letterforms is Minister (a German font of the 1920s) through my first font in the mid-1990s, Diaconia. There are many OpenType features with over 600 characters: Caps, lower case, small caps, ligatures, discretionary ligatures, swashes, small cap figures, old style figures, numerators, denominators, accent characters (including CE), ordinal numbers (1st-infinity: lining and oldstyle), and so on. It is designed for text use in body copy.

Silly Girls is a Monoline font. This font describes about girly, feminist, dynamic, easy to use and easy to use and will bring a good harmony when the letters are connected and paired each other. FEATURES - Support Opentype Features - Support Ligatures bb dd ee ff gg kk ll mm nn oo pp rr ss tt st at att et ett it itt ot ott ut utt yt gt lt rt The - Uppercase - Lowercase - Numbering and Punctuations - Multilingual Support - Works on PC or Mac USE Silly Girls works great in any branding, logos, magazines, wedding designs, social media posts, quotes, invitation, stationery, craft and any projects that need monoline handwriting taste. Enjoy using! Thanks. HIRO.std

Typoskript AR is based on a metal type which was produced in 1968 by VEB Typoart, Dresden, from a design of the German calligrapher and lettering artist Hildegard Korger. It bears all the qualities of the artist’s inimitable style which will be immediately recognizable to anyone who’s familiar with her Handbook of Type and Lettering (Lund Humphries, 1992) (Schrift und Schreiben, Leipzig, Fachbuchverlag, 1971). The ARTypes transcription retains the roughness of the artist’s pen on paper as it was featured in the original type, as well as the letterfit, ch, ck and f-ligatures. ARTypes have supplied the font with all the standard accents, monetary signs, etc. The original qu logotype is provided as an alternative letter. A printable .pdf specimen of the type can be downloaded from the gallery.

ITC Photoplay is another gem from Nick Curtis. Unearthed from the 1927 edition of Samuel Welo's Studio Handbook for Artists and Advertisers, the design's original suggested use was for title and caption cards for silent movies. A monoweight design that bridges the gap between turn-of-the-century decorative type and Art Deco, ITC Photoplay is both casual and stylish. And, yes, the cap S" is supposed to look that that. To expand this already handy typeface's versatility, a Black weight has been added to the original design. Curtis has also created an array of alternate characters, a couple of conjunctions, and a handful of "bishop's fingers" to help make your point. ITC Photoplay is eminently suitable for all those occasions when you need to say, "Unhand that fair damsel, you dastardly cad!", and really mean it."