Early Texas patriots had fascinating penmanship. In researching Texas Hero years ago, I had occasion to pore over copies of letters by the likes of Stephen F. Austin, William B. Travis, Thomas J. Rusk, and others. Austin's hand was pretty messy. Young, brave Travis wrote his last during the Alamo siege. Rusk's suited my original task. But a couple other styles caught my eye -- among them the bold yet graceful strokes of Sam Houston, the prototypical Texas Hero. Houston Pen has a complete character set.

French Stencil JNL was inspired by images of a set of metal stencils from France that were offered for sale in an online auction.

Online auctions offer a treasure trove of lost or forgotten merchandise, and many items pertaining to lettering just beg to be digitized into a typeface. Case in point is a partial set of brass stencils that were the visual model for Ultra Thin Stencil JNL. While most of the brass interlocking stencils available now and in the past have bold lettering for easy readability, this particular set consisted of condensed letters with thin lines. Available in both regular and oblique versions, they join a long list of stencil designs available from Jeff Levine Fonts.

Linotype Aperto is a typical text font in the style of transitional faces, like its often-used cousin Times. It is available in roman, semibold and bold weights, each with its matching italic. The roman weight is complete with old style figures and small caps. Its balanced, reserved appearance makes Aperto extremely flexible, good for long texts as well as headlines.

Named for Antoine Augereau, teacher of Claude Garamond, this much admired rendition of the classic Garamond typeface was created by George Abrams and released in 1997.

Roman Wood Type JNL is based on a partial set of wood type in the style of Clarendon Condensed that was seen in an online auction.

RealScore Script was inspired from the old west-coast music copyists. It is a handwritten font coming in 8 weights: Realscore Script Light Realscore Script Light Italic Realscore Script Light Oblique Realscore Script Regular Realscore Script Italic Realscore Script Oblique Realscore Script Bold Realscore Script Bold Italic Realscore Script Bold Oblique RealScore Script fonts can be used with any word processing program for text and display use, print and web projects, apps and ePub, comic books, graphic identities, branding, editorial, advertising, scrapbooking, cards and invitations and any casual lettering purpose… or even just for fun!