In a large neighborhood that crosses two cities in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, all streets are still in Tupi-Guarani language. The shop signs are hand painted. And people, every day, come and go along Sycaba Avenue.

Trocadero JNL was inspired by an early 1950s photo showing the signage for the Trocadero Restaurant located on Liberty Avenue and 23rd Street in Miami Beach. Highly stylized and classically Art Deco in design, it is best used in short one- or two-word titles.

Madison Antiqua was original released as a metal typeface for hand-setting in 1965. The letters were produced by D. Stempel AG in Frankfurt, Germany. Their design was based heavily on an earlier German typeface named Amts-Antiqua, which had also been produced by Stempel. Amts-Antiqua is credited to Henrich Hoffmeister, and he developed it between 1909 and 1919. Madison Antiqua is an excellent selection for body text in magazines and newspapers. The typeface features a characteristic x-height, and attention-grabbing serifs. For a time, Madison Antiqua was associated with advertising design, because of its namesake: Madison Avenue in New York. Madison Avenue is a global center of advertising excellence.

A 1934 advertisement for the Roney Plaza Hotel at 23rd Street and Collins Avenue on Miami Beach yielded the inspiration for Tropical Tourist JNL. While this wonderful example of Art Deco lettering survived, sadly the original Roney was torn down around 1969 and replaced with a modern apartment house/condos bearing the same name.

Manufacturer JNL is a reinterpretation of the classic type face Venus Extra Bold Extended, and is available in both regular and oblique versions. According to Wikipedia: “Venus or Venus-Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface family released by the Bauer Type Foundry of Frankfurt am Main, Germany from1907 onwards. Released in a large range of styles, including condensed and extended weights, it was very popular in the early-to-mid twentieth century. It was exported to other countries, notably the United States, where it was distributed by Bauer Alphabets Inc, the U.S. branch of the firm.”

This stylish stout script was originally issued in the 1930s under the name “Fulgor” by the spanish foundry Fundición Gans. Cursory research suggests that Saks-Fifth Avenue found it suitably snooty to use extensively in its newspaper ads of that period. Perhaps somewhat ironically, this version takes its name from one of comedian W. C. Fields' many odd aliases.

The inspiration for Cuba comes from a sign for the restaurant "La Flor de Cuba" on Bergenline Avenue in Union City, New Jersey. Its blocky, dimensional forms are reminiscent of letterforms seen in signs throughout Latin America from, Colombia, to Mexico, to Spain, to Union City. Its quirky forms are meant to evoke a sense of hand painted signage.