The calligraphy font Banner was designed by Martin Wait in 1986 and mixes the character of the 1940s with that of the 1980s in its forms. The round and somewhat reserved lower case letters make a balanced basis for the generous capitals. Black outer contours surround a white inner area and are heavier on the right side of the figures, making the characters look as though they have shadows. Banner should be used in point sizes of 18 and larger and is meant for lighthearted short texts or headlines.

Koala was originally designed in 1999 by Eric de Berranger with an individual, independent character. A distinguishing characteristic of this sans serif font is its marked stroke contrast, typical of Modern Face fonts. The open, airy forms are reminiscent of ancient Roman capitals. The lower case letters display traits similar to those often seen on posters and in advertisements of the 1930s and 1940s. The lively Koala is particularly good for shorter texts and headlines in larger point sizes and combines well with fonts with little stroke contrast.

Wavelength is a unique sans serif family of five weights and italics. For all of it's unusual detailing and arc-shaped strokes, this typeface is a solid workhorse, and is highly legible at all sizes. It's an excellent starting point for a unique logotype or offbeat headline, and is able to cross genres and styles because of its essential letterform simplicity. Wavelength is contemporary, but with a nod to 1930s art deco, streamline, and even 1990s tech futurism. It's great all-arounder that works well with shadows, outlines, extrusions added within vector editing programs.

Retro-futuristic robot terminal type. The 1930s Moderne Streamline decade meets the digital domain in this weird font. Use it in an ad for Ford Tri-Motor Airplane or a story about an out of control 1980s computer monster. Which? Help it find its place- as it is lost in time. Digideco is a minimal font set that includes upper and lowercase letterforms which can be used at various sizes but, we consider it a headline/display font, best applied larger than 36 points in size. Shall we play a game?

Francis is a design previously offered by the Lanston Type Co. in the early 1990s. It is a revival of a 1955 Günther Gerhard Lange design, but with a heavier overall weight. Coming out of retirement, it has been fully reworked and refined with elegant curves and an expanded character set. This font works well at small sizes and larger display sizes for everything from wine labels to personal stationery. This type evokes the elegant sophistcation of the Jazz age and pairs well with a Martini and a fine selection of charcuterie.

Block-style typefaces make excellent sports-themed fonts, and Stadium JNL is no exception-- but this lettering style is also filled with nostalgia for decades past. Modeled from one of the many classic designs found in the Speedball® Lettering Textbook, this style of alphabet was quite popular in signage of the 1920s and 1930s. Stadium JNL fills the bill either way-- a font that is just as much at home on a gridiron or baseball diamond, or as lettering for a garage, warehouse or attention-getting ad copy.

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.

Rainsong is a display font inspired by the art and symbols of the Native Americans.

A revival of one of the popular American Clarendon wooden types of the 19th century.

A crisp, geometric semiscript, based on the font Adonis, originally released by American Type Founders.

The 1960’s and 1970’s are the inspiration for Sugarbang! Everything from music packages, beach party movies of the 60’s to cereal box art of the 1970’s are reflected in the kooky style that this font evokes. Sugarbang! is built on a random baseline so letterforms bounce up and down adding to the “zany” look of the design. Look to the second font, Koo Koo Puff, to be the next release in the Cerealboxx collection. Available now. It is a minimal font set which includes uppercase and lowercase letterforms. Suggested uses for the font would be above 42 points in size. Please note its normal tight spacing and that cap “T” and cap “L” have been specially kerned to account for the overhang of certain other letterforms. Sugarbang! - just add milk and it’s sugar frosted font goodness.

Hollywood Revue JNL gets its design inspiration and name from a vintage movie poster for "The Hollywood Revue of 1929". The letter style shows early Art Deco influences, yet the hand lettering was done in the late 1920s toward the end of the Art Nouveau period. MGM produced this early "talkie" all-star musical with a cast that included Jack Benny, John Gilbert, Conrad Nagel, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Polly Moran and many others. This is the motion picture where Cliff ("Ukelele Ike") Edwards introduced "Singin' in the Rain" (composed by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown). Years later, Freed was a producer at MGM and gathered up many of the songs he and Brown wrote during the 1920s to form the musical core of the 1952 Gene Kelly-Debbie Reynolds-Donald O'Conner musical "Singin' in the Rain".

African fonts are characterised by design considerations that differ from those of Europe and the Americas. At one extreme we have a relaxed and casual approach to life that values the quality of each moment in life far more than people do in the west. In this approach each element of the font, while being part of a community, nevertheless stands on its own and has its own "character". An African font that characterises this approach is Ubuvila (the word means relaxedness or relaxation in Zulu). There is no strict adherence to a design format in Ubuvila nor are the characters constrained by resting on the same baseline. They wander up and down in the sentence and find a comfortable resting place.

Leipziger Ornamente is another font inspired by the architecture of my home city. I draw inspiration from various buildings of the 1920s to the 1950s. The majority of motives in this font is adapted from sgraffitto ornaments found on residental buildings in the northern borough of Gohlis. The Leipsic Ornaments offer a delicate range of both floral and geometric embellishment pieces, to create fresh and lively designs from. You can use this font for smart and cool borders, frames and textures as well as for sparkling headpieces or vibrant eye-catchers in magazines, brochures, leaflets or personal stationary. If you’re interested in more ornaments, see also my classical Andron Ornamente, the splendid Art nouveau Behrens Ornaments and the exciting Art Deco Arthur Ornaments.

The above-the-store signage for many newspaper stands, soda shops, candy stores, luncheonettes and pharmacies of the 1950s and early 1960s were what was referred to as “privilege signs” provided by one of the major cola brands. Consisting of the brand’s emblems on the left and right, the remainder of the sign would carry the desired message of the storekeeper (such as “Candy – Soda – Newspapers”) in prismatic, embossed metal letters. Inspired by these vintage signs, Privilege Sign JNL recreates the condensed sans serif lettering style in both regular and oblique versions. The typefaces are solid black, but adding a selected color and a prismatic effect from your favorite graphics program can reproduce the look and feel of those old businesses.

Brosse is a family of slabserif faces which emphasise clarity and geometric cleanliness of line, in a 'Brave New World' sprit that harks back to the 1930s and possibly also to postwar rebuilding in the 1950s. Its clear legibility makes it ideal for poster work and titles, as well as for signage of any kind. Eight faces are offered, regular and italic, bold and bold italic, as well as a condensed face and a bold weight thereof. There are also two decorative forms- outline and embossed faces. All faces include a large character set and extensive Opentype features. A Demonstrater version of the regular face is also offered free of charge-this is fully licensed but has a signnificantly reduced character set.

Art Student JNL is a limited character set font inspired by hand lettering found on the box for a learn-to-draw set from the 1950s.

FS Koopman is a hard-working typeface. A crossbred workhorse that draws on inspiration from Swiss grotesks, American gothics and early British grotesques. It refuses to fit neatly into any of these categories, it’s neither one nor the other, but all of the above. It’s kinda Swiss meets American… (but with a slight Yorkshire twang).

Morris Fuller Benton’s version of the standard American nineteenth century blackletter made for ATF in 1901.

The first of the popular American informal scripts designed by R.E. Smith for ATF in 1933.

AstroBats is a fun set of ornaments with a 'Retro Sci-Fi' theme. Think of those 1950s Japanese tinplate robots, think ray guns, think spaceships! Have fun!

This idea of "wrong way weights" was originally called French Clarendon by the Americans, Italienne by the French, and American by the Italians. Sounds like nobody wanted to own up to it. When it was revived by ATF in 1933, it was given the name P. T. Barnum. Many variations have appeared. Dime Museum is an old wood type.

This font is meant evoke Native American art of the South-West US. The examples of this art that I've seen are very geometric, using rectangles and triangles to create all the images. This font isn't meant to be an authentic example of native American art, but is inspired by such. http://homepage.mac.com/baronvoncruzer/cyberiankhatru/bluethunderbird.htm

The Bitstream version of Caslon Bold of the American Type Founders, 1905. Based on William Caslon I’s first English Old Style typefaces of 1725. Caslon modeled his designs based on late 17th century Dutch types, but his artistic skills enabled him to improve those models, bringing a variety of forms and subtlety of details. Strokes in Caslon fonts are somewhat heavier than in earlier Old Style fonts, serifs are thicker and a bit stubby. Italic letters have uneven slope. A text set in Caslon looks legible and aesthetically appealing. Caslon is a favorite font of English printers for setting of classical literature. Cyrillic version was developed for ParaType in 2002 by Isay Slutsker and Manvel Shmavonyan.

Inspired by the large American wood type of the Wild West, Richard Yeend created Italienne Std in 2002. Italienne Std is both very condensed and very decorative. It sports heavy, band like serifs, reminiscent of other italienne-style fonts, like Westside. Italienne-style fonts rose in popularity during the early 19th Century, when designers were first beginning to experiment with extreme contrast within letterforms, and across lines of text. Interestingly enough, letterforms with similar designs were just as common during the 1970s as during the 1870s, so you may use Italienne Std for applications ranging from country music concerts to disco parties. Italienne Std is part of the Take Type 5 collection from Liinotype GmbH."

Ministry Script was designed to be “A time capsule that marks both the American ad art of the 1920s, and the current new-millennium acrobatics of digital type.” First letters of Ministry comes from a how-to lettering book but immediately turned on a complex and modern new digital typeface design with thousand glyphs. Ministry’s OpenType features include contextual and stylistic alternates, swash characters, and a galaxy of ligatures. A single face with over 1,000 characters to explore. The OpenType palette provides access to four different variants of each letter. For more info about the use of Ministry, its background, ligatures, alternates, please read The Ministry Script Guide in the Gallery section.

Lager is a plump, sympathetic and tasty script family inspired by good old American commercial lettering of mid-1900s – yet there’s more to it than meets the eye. Implemented with an exceptional feature called Intelligent Swash Lager delivers perfected results with an handmade feel. Depending on the choice of letters Intelligent Swash grows and stretches swashes automatically. Accompanied by various ligatures and stylistic alternates, Lager creates beautifully completed words with minimal effort. Just make sure you activate Titling Alternates from your OpenType-menu. The Lager package will be delivered with 5 complete weights, 2 sets of well-groomed numerals and Small Caps as a great companion for the script style. Get high on Lager, it won't leave you short.

A 1930s WPA (Works Projects Administration) poster advertising a play entitled “Abraham Lincoln, The Great Commoner” had the play’s name done in a hand-lettered Art Deco sans. This is the basis for Art Project JNL. According to Wikipedia, “the Works Progress Administration (renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration; WPA) was the largest and most ambitious American New Deal agency, employing millions of unemployed people (mostly unskilled men) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. In a much smaller but more famous project, Federal Project Number One, the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects.”

A typical set of American Tuscan capitals cast by ATF in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Print Shop Parts JNL has a nostalgic assortment of blank sign panels, a pointing hand, decorative embellishments and even an assortment of "Made in U.S.A.", "Made in America" and "Made in United States" emblems located on the 1-9 keys. All are from vintage type catalogs and sign painting instruction books from the early 1900s. When scaled up, the blank sign panels can be used for small signs or price tags as originally made in years past. During the early part of the 20th Century, it was common to create show cards in attention-getting shapes matched with beautiful hand lettering.

I love geometric sans serifs, their crispness and rationality. Le Havre taps into this style, but for a while, I've wanted to create a font recalling the printed Futura of the 1940s, which seems to have an elusive quality all its own. After seeing an old manual on a World War II ship, I developed a plan for "Le Havre Metal" but chose to shelve the project due to Le Havre's small x-height. That's where Steagal comes in. When Robbie de Villiers and I began the Chatype project in early 2012 (a project which led one publication to label me the Edward Johnston of Chattanooga!), we started closely studying the vernacular lettering of Chattanooga. During that time, I also visited Switzerland, where I saw how designers were using a new, handmade aesthetic with a geometric base. I was motivated to make a new face combining some of these same influences. The primary inspiration for the new design came from the hand-lettering of sign painters in the United States, circa 1930s through 1950s. My Chatype research turned up a poster from the Tennessee Valley Authority in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which exhibited a number of quirks from the unique hand and style of one of these sign artists. Completing the first draft of Steagal, however, I found that the face appeared somewhat European in character. I turned then to the work of Morris Fuller Benton for a distinctly American take and discovered a number of features that would help define Steagal as a "1930s American" vernacular typeface--features I later learned also inspired Morris Fuller Benton's Eagle. The overall development of Steagal was surprisingly difficult, knowing when to deliberately distort optical artifacts and when to keep them in place. Part of type design is correcting optical illusions, and I found myself absentmindedly adjusting the optical effects. In the end, though, I was able to draw inspiration from period signs, inscriptions, period posters, and architecture while retaining just enough of the naive sensibility. Steagal has softened edges, which simulate brush strokes and retain the feeling of the human hand. The standard version has unique quirks that are not too intrusive. Overshoots have almost been eliminated, and joins have minimal corrections. The rounded forms are mathematically perfect, geometric figures without optical corrections. As a variation to the standard, the “Rough” version stands as the "bad signpainter" version with plenty of character. Steagal Regular comes in five weights and is packed with OpenType features. Steagal includes three Art Deco Alternate sets, optically compensated rounded forms, a monospaced variant, and numerous other features. In all, there are over 200 alternate characters. To see these features in action, please see the informative .pdf brochure. OpenType capable applications such as Quark or the Adobe Creative suite can take full advantage of the automatically replacing ligatures and alternates. Steagal also includes support for all Western European languages. Steagal is a great way to subtly draw attention to your work. Its unique quirks grab the eye with a authority that few typefaces possess. Embrace its vernacular, hand-brushed look, and see what this geometric sans serif can do for you.

Tina is another powerful script designed in the style of the classic forties and fifties American advertising fonts.

Mortised Caps join the victoria font Renouveau in a classic mortised frame from golden times of american foundryes.

A bold, handmade stencil alphabet from the book “Lettering” by Harry B. Wright (1950) served as the model for Obscure Stencil JNL – available in both regular and oblique versions.

In the 1934 edition of the American Type Foundry’s “Book of American Type” is a selection of letterpress fonts which emulate typewriter faces. One design named “Bulletin Typewriter” served at the model for Cub Reporter JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions. The font has been monospaced in order to add a more traditional typewriter look to any project.

Gandul is inspired by the old american typography and also in the "gandul" lifestyle, that means slacker in Spanish.