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.”

Right now! FS Emeric reconciles a pair of seemingly opposing approaches: the systematic but chilly functionalism of early modernist typography, trapped in time, and a warmer, more emotional, more optimistic spirit. What Fontsmith created was something that marries precision with expression, geometry with movement, functionality with humanity. FS Emeric has a sharp, kinetic edge that cuts across design disciplines – graphic, fashion, product, automotive. It’s about what’s happening right now. Contemporary, optimistic, distinctive – a classic working sans serif. Appetite Discussions with some of Fontsmith’s design studio clients had revealed an appetite for a new kind of typeface that could express mid-century modernist principles in a fresh, contemporary voice. As he crafted the letterforms that would form FS Emeric, Phil Garnham was guided by two central ideas. First, there was Jan Tschichold’s contention that a good letter is “one that expresses itself, speaking with the utmost distinctiveness and clarity”. Second was a belief that a font can be personally expressive without compromising its functionality. These provided the fuel that drove the project to its conclusion. Posters To mark the launch of FS Emeric, Fontsmith asked 11 eminent design studios from around the world – the likes of Pentagram, Studio Dumbar, Bibliotheque, Non-Format and Build – to create a limited edition A1 poster. Each poster celebrated a different weight of FS Emeric, and just 50 of each were screen-printed by Dan Mather onto 175gsm Colorplan stock. “We gave away a randomly selected poster every time two or more weights of the FS Emeric were purchased,” says Phil Garnham. “They’ve now become somewhat of a collector’s item in their own right.” Superfamily In the spirit of Univers, the original font superfamily, FS Emeric now comprises 22 Roman and italic typefaces overall, making it one of the most versatile and functional modern fonts across all kinds of media, as well as one of the most distinctive.

For best results, use of OpenType features is strongly recommend. This font is inspired by Johannes Janssonius, well know as Jan Janszoon o Jan Janssonius (Arnhem, 1588 – Amsterdam, 1664), was a Dutch cartographer, publisher and engraver. Married to Hondius's daughter. He was the author of many masterpieces of cartography of the 1700s like Willem Blaeu and Hondius, famous maps with heavy use of decorations in the letterig to fill the spaces of oceans, seas, lakes and scrolls. Now you can easily recreate not just ancient maps without effort, but you can use this font creatively, to make unique, modern logos, product names, fresh packaging, hip fashion outfits, refined labels, signs, coordinated images ... Hundreds of alternatives to choose from and maybe to combine with other fonts in an original way. One extra font with 27 castles in Janszoon style are also usefull for map, of course, but also for many different creative artworks. Warning: Jannson Map having oversized swashes compared to the normal standards cannot be used with Windows Word because Word does not give the possibility to manage the line spacing professionally. Jannson Map works great with applications like Illustrator, In Design, quark Xpress, mac Text etc ...