ITC Kulukundis is the work of designer Daniel Pelavin, a square, connecting script which looks as though it could have been cast in shiny chrome for the side of a 1950s American roadster. Pelavin based his design very loosely on a vertical French script but the overall look is all his own. Unlike calligraphic scripts, the lower case letters all connect in exactly the same way and the straight diagonal junctures give the typeface its broad, spacious character and keep it locked into a continuous line. ITC Kulukundis could also be used to create a decorative border for special occasions.

Frederic Goudy designed National Old Style Roman in 1916. It is loosely based on a logo he lettered for the National Biscuit Company in 1901. Steve Matteson expanded on Goudy’s original by designing a bold, semibold and matching italics. While much of Goudy’s work is strongly influenced by Venetian types of the 15th and 16th centuries - this design has a truly American quality about it. The design is useful for text or headlines that captures a sense of Americana.

Camelia is an demi–slab display type family with reversed strokes to achieve an unexpected look and rythm. Was designed and optimized for use in large sizes. It is inspired by the geometric typefaces of the 1920s and the egyptiennes of the 1930s. An emphasis on circular and rectangular shape give it the identity.

Samuel Welo’s “Studio Handbook for Artists and Advertisers” was a popular book of inspiration for sign painters, graphic artists and designers from the 1920s through the 1960s. Many digital revivals of Welo’s hand lettered typography have been made available. Formal Notice JNL is one such revival, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Berling is an old style typeface based on the classical Venetian model used by Aldus Manutius at the end of the fifteenth century. Berling was first cut by the Berling foundry in 1951 with further weights released in 1958. The Berling font family is intended primarily for setting text in books~ journals and magazines.

This family of faces is based on the series Riverside Drive, designed by Peter Max for Photo-Lettering Inc. in the early 1970s. However, several letters have been altered to maintain design consistency and to improve legibility. Both versions of this font support the Latin 1252, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

Here is another attempt to create a font for invitation work unlike any already out in the world. In casting about for a name, I decided to call it Valerie after Valerie Hope, a mindreader of days long gone, who played California theatres in the 1930s and 1940s. And who, incidentally, was my mother.

This elegant monoline script is based on a typeface called "Médicis" from a Deberny and Peignot catalog, circa 1920. Graceful but robust, it is equally suited for invitations, announcements and headlines. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

Avenida was created by architect and designer John Chippindale in 1994 and is a constructed typeface that leaves a cool, sophisticated impression. An Art Deco typeface inspired lettering found on buildings constructed in Spain's Andalucian region in the 1930's and 1940's. Avenida is best suited to headlines and short to middle length texts.

The main 20-th century handwritten display font in the USSR, usually performed with a flat brush or a wide poster pen for all kinds of signage during 1920-1990s. It had also many analogues in other countries, but never was that popular as in the Soviet Union, used everywhere. The softened modern humanistic version.

Break out the love beads and fire up the lava lamp! Here’s a fresh take on the Artone alphabet, designed by Seymour Chwast in the 1960s. Beefy, bodacious and bottom-heavy, this typeface keeps on truckin' along. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

A 1970s Photolettering catalog indentified the pattern for this typeface as "Exotique" ...from France, no less. Named for a French expression meaning “pun,” this face is, indeed, witty and playful, with nary a groan in sight. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode 1252 Latin and Unicode 1250 Central European character sets.

A rather droll unicase typeface, discovered in a 1970s chapbook of suggested lettering for Soviet propaganda posters, inspired this bouncy beauty. Way more fun than a barrel of Volga Boatmen. The PC Postscript, Truetype and Opentype versions contain the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

An older typeface belonging to a family of sans serif fonts known as Grotesque (or Grotesk in the classic spelling) has been re-drawn by Jeff Levine and released as Album Cover JNL. The font's name is derived from the fact that this typeface was found on many long-playing record jackets during the 1950s and 1960s. To add a look closer to that of hand-set type, there are minute variants in some of the heights of the characters.

No prizes for guessing this font family was inspired by the 1950s - the sounds (Buddy, Eddie, Elvis), the styles (polka dots, petticoats and Dior's New Look), and the kitsch, from furry dice above the dashboard to plaster ducks over the mantlepiece! A particular point of reference is the furnishings and fabrics of the Fifties (with their distinctive kidney shapes and angular curves) as showcased in the Festival of Britain 1951. See also my other fun fonts Barrowboy, Calypso and Pier Arcade.

Linotype Balder is a part of the Take Type Library, winners of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contest. Designed by Lutz Baar, Balder is reminiscent of advertisement and poster typefaces of the 1950s and 1960s. It is composed of only capital letters, making it perfect for initials and headlines. Balder looks as though it were written with a broad tipped pen. Its light serifs at the tops of the characters and the slant of some of the strokes give Balder a dynamic feel.

Feltboard JNL was drawn from images of letters and numbers contained in a felt board (also known as a flannel board) sign kit from the 1940s or 1950s. The irregularity of stroke widths and character shapes is representative of the actual shapes of the die-cut pieces found within this kit. Note: The cap height is slightly smaller than normal for the respective point size. This will give the effect of wider line spacing - similar to that of hand-made signs.

British designer Bob Newman's Horatio family is a delightful look back into the modernists experiments of the 1920s. This geometric sans serif design was created in 1971, and was originally released by Letraset. We are please to offer the family in digital form, in light, medium, and bold weights. Many designers during the 1920s were interested in reforming the alphabet, and wanted to reconcile letterforms with the machine and manufacturing technology of the age. Herbert Bayer at the Bauhaus was one of many designers who developed a universal alphabet," creating letters using only the simplest of geometric forms. Similar experiments in 1920s-style revivals were also created during the 1970s, most notably Herb Lubalin's ITC Avant Garde Gothic."

Dom Casual is a very condensed script, almost monotone, with irregular vertical strokes ending at different heights, and which suggests a freehand effect. It was designed by Pete Dom in 1951 for American Type Founders. As its name suggests, the Dom Casual font gives the appearance of a quick brush-like lettering and is suitable for setting titles, subheadings and short copy. There is some variations of stress in the rounded letters.

Designed at ParaType in 1990 by Elvira Slysh. Based on Brush Script of American Type Founders, 1972, by Robert E. Smith. À popular and widely used script face. Designed to give the impression of letters written with a brush with coherent lowercase, giving a fairly black overall color. Ideal for display work and wherever an informal, handwritten style is required. For use in posters, newspapers and magazines, advertisements, signs and many other informal applications.

Similar in design to Franklin Gothic, News Gothic was one of a number of sans serif faces manufactured by American Type Founders in the early years of the twentieth century. Initially cut as a light sans, heavier versions were made in the 1940s and 50s along with some condensed weights. The News Gothic font family offers an uncomplicated design that is well suited for use in newspapers and magazines for headlines and in advertisements.

Miss Demeanor has a tendency to create her own rules due to her free-spirited nature. She conforms to every day typographic expectations but she wouldn’t like you to think so. She has unusual yet casual and eye catching shapes and makes the best of any situation. I hope you enjoy her pretty style! My inspiration for Miss Demeanor came from a specimen sheet of an american type style from the early 1930’s.

American Type Founders released the pattern for this typeface under the name "Thermotype". In the days of cast-metal foundry type, copyfitting headlines could prove problemmatic at times; this typeface, with a wide uppercase and narrower lowercase of exactly the same “color”, allowed stacked lines of type to be composed with uniform width. Clean, crisp and practical. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Similar in design to Franklin Gothic, News Gothic was one of a number of sans serif faces manufactured by American Type Founders in the early years of the twentieth century. Initially cut as a light sans, heavier versions were made in the 1940s and 50s along with some condensed weights. The News Gothic font family offers an uncomplicated design that is well suited for use in newspapers and magazines for headlines and in advertisements.

A 1930s WPA (Works Progress Administration) poster promoting national parks depicts Native Americans overlooking the land with the tag line "his hunting ground of yesterday". The hand lettering of that text is reminiscent of Futura Black and similar Art Deco stencil-influenced type designs, but is rendered in an oblique lower case with no capitals. Re-drawn as Sandwich Shop JNL, the typeface is now available in both regular (vertical) and oblique versions.

This rugged typeface is based on letterforms in the Cherokee Syllabary, reputedly devised by a gentleman named Sequoyah in the early nineteenth century. In addition, Native American petroglyphs—some authentic Cherokee designs, some from other tribes—are included in several positions. The name of the typeface, however, is authentic Cherokee, and can be loosely translated as “Yo! Wuzzup?” Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Gravure was designed by Morris F. Benton in 1927 for American Type Founders and was also released in 1929 by the London foundry of C. W. Shortt. This luminous face has a slightly naïve charm seldom found in incised typefaces. Ornamental and engaging, it’s a perfect choice for headlines with warmth and grace. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin and 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan) character sets.

The 1912 American Specimen Book of Type Styles from ATF featured a quaint little offering called "Tabard", whose antique charm was enhanced by several rather quirky alternate characters. This version tosses out the standard characters and keeps the quirks in the works: the result is warm, engaging, slightly mischievous and a whole lot of fun. The Opentype version of this font supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages, as well as Unicode 1252 (Latin) languages.

A typeface named Times Gothic, which made its first appearance in the 1905 ATF specimen book, inspired this headline sans. Use it to add a bit of quirky visual interest to headlines and subheads. Both versions include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, with localization for Lithuanian, Moldovan and Romanian.

Here’s a typeface with a stance as big as Texas. It’s based on Vincent Pacella’s 1960s oeuvre for Photo-Lettering, Inc. called Pacella Vega Extended 10, and named for a county in Central Texas, home of Possum Kingdom Lake. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

A 1930s luggage tag from an eponymous hotel provided the inspiration for this face. The uppercase letters lean to the left and the lowercase letters lean to the right, so aLtErNaTiNg the two will give your headlines a little bounce. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

This heavyweight poster sans is based on the typeface Samson, designed by Robert Hunter Middleton for the Ludlow Type Foundry in 1940. The slanted uprights suggesting brushwork make this face a perfect choice for casually commanding headlines. Both versions include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, with localization for Lithuanian, Moldovan and Romanian.

Fire the retro rockets! Here's a decidedly different take on techno type, patterned after Robert Williamson's Program 32 from the 1970s. Despite its machine-readable pretensions, it renders remarkably warm headlines. 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.

Artist Colony JNL is the third type design inspired by some online examples from an early 20th Century French book of decorative hand lettering. While Arte Critique JNL and French Art Initials JNL embrace the Art Noveau style, Artist Colony JNL leans more toward the emerging Art Deco Movement of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Here's another gem from Samuel Welo's perennial classic, The Studio Handbook, originally called Goddard Classic. Welo's inimitable penwork manages to be both worldly and whimsical, and remains as fresh today as when it was first introduced in the 1920s. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets.

Ask any typical New Yorker about subway directions and they'll tell you to take the "uptown line", "downtown line" or "cross-town line". Uptown Line JNL is yet another variation of the Art Deco monoline style of lettering prevalent during the 1930s and 1940s, and is based on titling from vintage sheet music for a Johann Strauss classical piece.

Inspired by handlettering used on many WPA posters of the 1930s, this monocase display font has stylish lines and graceful curves that will add period charm to any project they grace. Available and normal and bold weights. The Opentype versions of these fonts support Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages, as well as Unicode 1252 (Latin) languages.

A 1920 art magazine from Great Britain entitled “Pan” had its three letter name hand lettered on the cover in a style that had elements of Art Nouveau, Art Deco and what would eventually be called Techno in the 1980s. This inspired the typeface Art Magazine JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Birch Beer JNL comes from lettering spotted on a European business sign found in some stock footage that was used for an old black and white film about World War II. The name is derived from a popular root beer-like soda sold by the Royal Castle Restaurants that were popular in Florida from the 1930s through the 1970s.

The 1900 specimen book of the Leipzig foundry Schelter & Giesecke featured this curious hybrid of blackletter and Art Nouveau, under the name Petrarka. Its narrow footprint and large x-height make it an ideal choice for headlines which harken both forward and back. Both versions contain the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets.