Here’s another offering based on the work of Alf Becker, long-time contributor to Signs of the Times magazine. This only comes from the 1940s, and is a light and bouncy single-stroke face that’s sure to pep up any project it graces. This font contains the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Here's a lettering style that just might be exactly on your wavelength. Add just the right dose of vintage freak-a-delia to your retro graphics with this original psychedelic-style design. Great for music posters, album graphics, book titles, etc. Evoke a warpy, wavy, whimsical vibe that harks back to the carefree 1960s or early 1970s era with Sixties Flashback; it's pure hippie, trippy fun!

From alphabets created for book illustrations in the 1970s to lettering created for a book jacket in the 1990s, the Mentor family of typefaces has developed along its own slow and circuitous path. Always present in its evolution, though, has been the influence of three 20th century design giants: Eric Gill, Reynolds Stone, and Hermann Zapf, as filtered through the meticulous sensibility of Michael Harvey.

Although less prevalent today, a cover charge was added to better class night clubs of the 1930s and 1940s to discourage patronage by people of questionable social graces. The general idea was that the lower strata of society (meaning the "average Joe" or "hoi polloi") would balk at paying an extra fee just for entrance to a place of good entertainment and fine dining.

The model for this monocase typeface was issued in the early 1900s by Barnhart Brothers & Spindler with the rather prosaic name of Steelplate. A hundred years later, it still retains its currency (ouch!), which is how it got its name. Complete Adobe character set except for superior numbers. The Opentype version of this font supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages, as well as Unicode 1252 (Latin) languages.

For decades, spot illustrations - whether by hot type, photoengraving, clip art or (in later years) digital means provided decorative and often lighthearted breaks in reading printed copy. This collection of twenty-six cartoon images has been meticulously re-drawn in digital format from 1920s-1930s era source material. By adding a simple caption underneath a design, your ad copy can be enhanced with these wonderful period pieces.

Mayak is a geometric sans serif inspired by the Soviet constructivist fonts of the 1920s-1930s. It contains traditional upper and lower case characters as well as small caps and a great number of stylistic alternates. The font comes in 12 styles: 4 weights in 3 widths. Mayak was designed by Yana Nosenko with contributions from Dmitry Kirsanov and released by ParaType in 2017.

Twentieth Century Poster, designed by Sol Hess for Lanston Monotype in the 1940s, provided the inspiration for this family of faces. Although, historically, the design falls outside the time period normally considered the Art Deco era, its sensibilities are pure Art Moderne. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

A postcard for a 1952 DeSoto automobile, combined with the (non)sensibilities of legendary British lettering artist Cecil Wade, yielded this slightly tacky and thoroughly wacky gaggle of letters. Use liberally whenever levity, brevity (the soul of wit), or a bit of mischief is called for. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin and 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan) character sets.

Eckmannschrift is a redrawing based on original sketches and type specimens of the original 1900 Otto Eckmann typeface Eckmannschrift. It includes the original characters designed by Otto Eckmann not included in most modern releases of the font. Though it is a vintage typeface, it has found several popular resurgences of use over its 100 years in existence, including today's retro styles and psychedelic posters from the 1960s.

This rather quirky typeface is based on a design by Collette and Dufour, originally called "Independant", for the Maison Plantin foundry of Belgium. Ultramodern (by 1930s standards, at least) and ultrabold, it takes up a lot of real estate, and commands a lot of attention while doing so. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

This playful Art Deco classic was inspired by one of many posters produced by the WPA by anonymous artists during the 1930s. An inline version has been added to spice up the visual interest and add a touch of class. Both versions of the font include complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1524 character sets, with localization for Moldovan, Romanian and Turkish.

Here’s a futuristic face with a neo-retro twist, based on the logotype for the 1990s tank-warfare videogame for the Mac, Spectre. Whether you're going back to the future or resurrecting a blast from the past, this face will get you there in style. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets.

The hand lettering found on a small catalog sheet for decorative decals from the 1930s-1940s era was the perfect source material for Crestview Six JNL. Handmade typefaces or signage from past decades offer a wonderfully humanistic change from the perfectly-crafted designs of printer's type (or digital type in the modern era). The font's name comes from the old alpha-numerical phone exchanges of the past.

This big family summarizes and develops the tradition of boldface squared-off 45° shear sanserifs. Known from the middle of 19th century and actively used in different times (1920s, 1970s) is still usable now, thanks to its brutal expression, monumentality and possibility to fully maximize the flatness without loss of readability. This font is especially good for filling letters with photos or to create geometrical “constructivist” compositions.

One of countless variations possible from the modular lettering system called "Super Veloz", developed by Spanish type designer Joan Trouchut-Blanchard in the 1930s. The name is a play on the old G.I. acronymn FUBAR, translated politely as "fouled up beyond all recognition". Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 Latin and Unicode 1250 Central European character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

This bouncy beauty was inspired by Walnetto Casual, designed by Dave West for Photo-Lettering, Inc. in the 1970s, and takes its name from a mythical West Texas beastie. This version has been thoughtfully designed to use Contextual Alternates to avoid unsightly serif collisions for best possible visual effect. Both versions of this font include the complete Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

A 1920 Dutch poster for Public Placement Services by Johan Dijsktra provided the inspiration for this crisp geometric typeface. Instead of the normal underscore (_), this font features a set of parallel lines flush to the tops of the caps and small caps, which offers some intriguing design possibilities. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode 1252 Latin and Unicode 1250 Central European character sets.

Power, speed and modern creature comforts characterized rail travel in the 1930s. To reflect those characteristics, legendary French poster artist A. M. Cassandre employed strong graphic elements and a chiaroscuro letter treatment to the 1939 poster lettering that inspired this font. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 Latin and Unicode 1250 Central European character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

Delicious Pro from Yes Please is a bold, contemporary take on the classic Americana script. Inspired by the vibrant history of early 20th Century American packaging vernaculars, Delicious Pro delivers unique flavor packed with gestural personality perfect for headlines, packaging and more! Delicious Pro features conventional ligatures, a standard set of accents and symbols, and a full set of extended custom styling ligatures to provide a versatile end-user experience. Delicious Pro has played hard for Nike Women's Training, Nike Sportswear, IFC and more. Delicious Pro is designed by Lee Schulz.

Palette was designed by Martin Wilke for Berthold in 1950.

In the 1949 Paramount comedy "My Friend Irma" (a film based on the popular radio series that introduced America to Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis), an opening gag set-up involving excavation work utilizes street barricades which inspired Work Crew Stencil JNL. Placed along the site, different advisories are stenciled upon barricades warning of the work in progress. The scatterbrained Irma (Marie Wilson) walks straight through the construction, oblivious as to what's going on around her and steps right into the open hole dug into the sidewalk (a scene she reprises in 1950's "My Friend Irma Goes West").

The Metro Office family is designed after the model of the original sans serif family – Metro No.1 – produced by W.A. Dwiggins and Mergenthaler Linotype’s design studio during the late 1920s and 1930s. A distinctly new interpretation of the sans serif idea, Metro was a thoroughly “American” sans serif when it was released. However, over the ensuing decades, it became a favorite the world over. Moreover, it is one of the first “humanist” sans serif typefaces designed. While redesigning Metro in 2006, Linotype’s Type Director Akira Kobayashi drew from his own knowledge of humanistic letterforms. The result is a redefined Metro; a typeface that is finally ready for heavy text setting. The original Linotype Metro No.1 never had italic variants. Kobayashi has created oblique variants, extending its use in document setting. A double-storey a and g, as well as a wider w were features of Dwiggins’ original Metro design that were filtered out by Mergenthaler Linotype in the 1930s. Kobayashi remedied this historical slight, retooling Dwiggins’ original forms and optimizing their legibility. Kobayashi has additionally retooled some of Metro’s more troublesome letters, which has black elements that became too dense. By opening up the troublesome joins (like that on the Q), Kobayashi has given his new Metro a more even color in text, improving its legibility while retaining its original spirit.

Imagine America in the 1930s. A gangster flick with Al Capone, a crime novel featuring Philip Marlowe. Our hero in a fedora sits in a classy bar, orders a double bourbon, lights a cigar and eyes the evening paper. He turns the pages, reading about a bank heist over on Third Avenue, a scandal involving a baseball player, a small ad for a general practitioner and a large spread about a famous law firm. What do the bottle of booze and the majestic facade of the bank have in common? The elegant baseball uniform and trustworthy attorneys? - Copperplate Gothic - When Frederick William Goudy created his legendary typeface in 1901, it went on to literally become the symbol of early 20th century America. Tiny serifs, characteristically broad letterforms, and particularly bold titles decorated calling cards at 6-point size, enormous bronze-cast logos, newspaper headlines, restaurant menus and more. This was the golden age of Copperplate, lasting up until the arrival of die neue Typografie and monospaced grotesques in the 1960s. Then the typeface almost completely disappeared. It made a partial comeback with the advent of the personal computer; digitizations of varying quality appeared, and one version even became a standard font in Adobe programs. This may have played a role in Copperplate later being used in DIY projects and amateur designs, which harmed its reputation. Copperplate New has been created to revive the faded glory of the original design. Formally, the new typeface expands the existing weight and proportional extremes. The slight serifs are reduced even further, making the typeface sans-like at smaller point sizes and improving readability. In contrast, at large point sizes it retains all of its original character. Decorative inline & shadow styles have been added and both have been created in all five proportions, making it easy to adapt the typesetting to the format you need. Despite these changes and innovations, Copperplate New remains true to Goudy’s original design and represents a snazzy way to evoke a golden era in American culture. Specimen: http://carontwice.com/files/specimen_Copperplate_New.pdf

The renowned American illustrator and graphic designer Milton Glaser designed Glaser Stencil in 1970. Glaser Stencil is a perfect summation of both Modernist proportion and New York-style solidity and self-assurance. An all capitals font, the shapes of the letters are reminiscent of popular sans serif faces of the time, such as Futura and ITC Avant Garde Gothic. Like everything New York-related, Glaser Stencil should be used big, in headlines and display applications, where it can play a bold, proud, and confident role.

Magazin ST is powerful but delicate. What fascinated me seeing, a couple of letters, in Bob Roy Kelly's book (American Wood Type:1828-1900) were the little squares in the corners that represent a glow from lighting coming from below and from the right. Such ambiguity excited me and I thought that today with digital resources it wouldn't take long to do it. Seeing it working is excellent. Look In the posters what it is for and the effects it produces, including the sensation of relief.- L.S.

P22 Tuscan Expanded is a digitization of the mid-19th Century Woodtype font "Antique Tuscan Expanded - Wells & Webb 1854". Specimens of this font are rarely, if ever, seen with a lower case. It is noted in the book American Wood Type 1828-1900 by Rob Roy Kelly that the lower case is "missing". This version was digitized from a recently discovered full set including all lower case plus ff ligatures. One unique feature of this design is the heart shape formed in the V, X & Y.

The design of the Newspoint typeface is based on the tradition of the American sans serif faces of the last century. This form expression was greatly influenced by the News Gothic type which was created by Morris Fuller Benton in 1908, and has, once again, become very popular. When the development of sans serif types such as Futura and Kabel by Renner and Koch began in 1925, the design of American sans serif types receded somewhat into the background. In the 1950’s, however, they experienced a renaissance which continues to this day. Thanks to its clean design and the relatively large x-height, the Newspoint is well suited for informative texts in newspapers, magazines, and brochures. In packaging design, as well, the Newspoint can display its strength in small print. Newspoint was developed as a customer-specific variation of the News Gothic. In contrast to the News Gothic, however, the face appears to be softer and more appealing thanks to the changed interpunctions. If so desired, the alternative characters give the typeface expanded individuality and a richness of design options.

Scentogram is a deco font inspired by some 1950-60 ads.

Carnaby Street is a vintage style bold font that pairs strong rectangular framing with softer rounded elements. It has a cool, funky, and groovy vibe, while still retaining a strong sense of linearity and geometry. This lettering style conjures up the retro vibes of the 1960s swinging London scene, or the psychedelic poster art of posters and handbills for the Fillmore Auditorium and Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco in the mid to late '60s. It represents a new take on a classic array of hand lettered stylings that have their roots both in the Art Nouveau Movement and the hippie counterculture movement of the 1960s and early 1970s.

For many decades, the fashion magazine “Vogue” featured superbly illustrated covers before photography became more commonplace. During the 1930s and 1940s those illustrations were accompanied by many creative styles of hand lettering for its monthly issues. The January, 1930 cover had the magazine’s name lettered in an Art Deco geometric monoline, which became the inspiration for Vagary JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. A vagary [in a simple sense] is when something or someone changes in an erratic or unexpected way (as the wind’s direction or in a person’s mood or whim)… and thus seemed the fitting name for this type style.

History, as it's said, tends to repeat itself. The round-point pen lettering used in the 1920s logo and ads for Dodge Brothers cars (pre-General Motors) is an early predecessor to the techno type styles of the 1980s. Square in shape, with unique stylization to some letters, Jalopy JNL can cross the decades and be used for a 1920s period piece and still look fresh in an ad for computer parts. Rather than round out the inside lines of the characters to fully emulate the strokes of a lettering pen, the inside lines have straight intersections for the contemporary side of this font's design.

Storefront is what the prolific and talented American sign painters of the 1920s and 1930s would have created if they had access to the advanced lettering and type technologies we have today. Rooted in an incomplete Alf Becker alphabet sample, Storefront is my usual overdose on alternates and swashes, my eternal attempt at giving typesetting that ever-elusive handmade impression. Though the main shapes, especially the majuscules, are almost a standard recitation of the natural evolution of nineteenth century scripts, the additional variants available within the font provide a leap in time to what sign makers and packagers are doing today. I can honestly say that Storefront’s influences are probably less historic and more in line with my recent travels and frequent supermarket visits. It’s difficult to avoid current visual culture when you're constantly bombarded with it. Not that I try. I certainly welcome the overflow. I'm probably addicted to it by now. With a very cool aesthetic, plenty of alternates and swashes, extended Latin language support, Storefront is over a thousand glyphs for your branding, packaging, and sign making pleasure.

Empresario Stephen F. Austin (1793-1836) is considered by many the “Father of Texas” for leading the first Anglo-American colony into the then-Mexican territory back in the 1820s. A few years later, while on a diplomatic mission to Mexico City, Austin was arrested on suspicion of plotting Texas independence and imprisoned for virtually all of 1834. During this time he kept a secret diary of his thoughts and musings—much of it written in Spanish. Austin Pen is my interpretation of Austin’s scribblings in this miniature prison journal (now in the collection of the wonderful Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, in the Texas city that bears his name). The little leather-bound book is filled with notes in ink and pencil—some of the faded penciled pages traced in ink years later by Austin’s nephew Moses Bryan. A genuine replication of 19th century cursive, Austin Pen has two styles: a fine regular weight, along with a bold style that replicates passages written with an over-inked pen. Each is legible and evocative of commonplace American penmanship of two centuries ago.

Nikita is a very lively upright script with lots of 1950s flair.

Avast, me hearties! Here be a serious pirate font, based loosely on several of Victor Hammer’s uncial typefaces, designed between 1925 and 1953, and liberally weathered and corroded for that authentic barnacle-encrusted look. The bullet character is suitable for marking where the treasure is buried, and the section mark is a Jolly Roger. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

This typeface bears a superficial resemblance to Belwe Extrabold, but is based on a work called Thor, issued by Frederic Wesselhoeft Ltd of London in the 1930s. The characters in this font are loosely spaced for use in attention-getting subheads, but you can tighten the tracking to get spectacular headlines, should you wish. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

A style of die-cut cardboard letters and numbers used for signs, displays and show cards was the basis for Haute Couture JNL, an Art-Deco flavored typeface from Jeff Levine. A direct cousin to Signboard JNL, this font shares some similar characteristics in letterforms. Both styles of die-cut lettering were manufactured by a number of companies, and were most popular from the 1940s through the mid-1960s.

This rough-and-ready display face is based on El Greco Antique, released by the Fundición Richard Gans of Madrid in the 1930s. Distressed but not distressing, rough yet charming, ragged around the edges but curiously refined. Named after a village in Greece which is the ancestral home of the forebears of the Curtii. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).