In 1931, Morris Fuller Benton created the Stymie typeface for the American Type Founders (ATF). Stymie is a reworking of a slab serif type that was popular in Europe at that time, Memphis. For the past one hundred fifty years, slab serif types (sometimes called Egyptian or Egyptienne-style faces) have been a popular choice for headline text in newspapers, magazines, and advertising.

This font started life in 1893 at the Boston Type Foundry, but was also cast at the Central Type Foundry. Both were members of the ATF combine formed in 1892. Like so many interesting fonts of its day, it was issued without a lowercase, limiting its use to display headlines. Sometime in the early 1990s, we designed a lowercase to go with it.

The first in a series of typefaces based on the work of legendary lettering artist Alf Becker, whose works appeared in Signs of the Times magazine for almost thirty years. Originally titled "Extreme Thin Gothic", this was Becker’s 185th design for the magazine. Both versions of the font include the 1252 Latin and 1250 CE character sets (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

The Neubank family builds on the firm foundation of Bank Gothic, a twentieth-century classic designed by Morris Fuller Benton for ATF, and adds a fluid, dynamic lowercase that makes it right at home in the twenty-first century. This font contains the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Nightspot JNL was modeled from one of many display alphabets created by the late sign painter and lettering expert Alf Becker. His work has graced the pages of Signs of the Times® magazine for decades. Special thanks to Tod Swormstedt of the American Sign Museum and ST Publications, Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio for providing the source material for this typeface.

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.

Some vintage 1960s-era packaging for dive gear (masks, swim fins, etc.) manufactured by the Voit division of AMF had various merchandise boxes hand-lettered [with some variation of design] in an interesting sans stencil. These packages formed the inspiration of Dive Gear Stencil JNL. Thanks once again to Gene Gable, whom on many occasions has provided Jeff Levine material for type design inspiration.

Shortly after the preparation of the original Century, the two Bentons (father Linn Boyd and son Morris Fuller) prepared a wider version for De Vinne’s press and called it Century Broadface. In 1900 ATF released the design for general use as Century Expanded, one of the most popular and effective of typefaces, to this day the text face of the New York Daily News.

Among many of Alf Becker’s contributions to Signs of the Times magazine was 1 1935 offering named Chicago Modern Thick and Thin, which provided the inspiration for this face. It’s a perfect choice for friendly headlines with an Art Deco vibe. Both versions include the complete Unicode Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, as well as localization for Lithuanian, Moldovan and Romanian.

The ATF syndicate released the inspiration for this quaint charmer in its 1884-1885 series of specimen books under its current name. Its warmth and unassuming naivete make it perfect for headlines seeking to evoke simpler times. Both versions of this font include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, along with localization for Lithuanian, Moldovan, Romanian and Turkish.

Titling Gothic FB is an immense series of nearly fifty styles inspired by that century-old favorite ATF Railroad Gothic. Led by the Los Angeles Times and Gentleman’s Quarterly, U.S. publications are using David Berlow’s series to unify the structure of headlines from its wide spectrum of options. Titling Gothic FB started as a relative of Berlow’s Rhode family, but took its own direction; FB 2005

Morris Fuller Benton’s Eagle, designed for ATF in 1934, which did yeoman-like duty on many WPA posters of the time. This version, unicase as was the original, has been designed to set tight, so that it creates dense and commanding headlines. All versions of this font include the Unicode 1250 Central European character set in addition to the standard Unicode 1252 Latin set.

Ad Lib designed by Freeman Craw for the American Type Founders (ATF) in 1961. A bold Grotesque with irregular rectangular counters in round characters. This type was designed by cutting the letter images out and thus has some wood-cut character. Some lower case characters have slight inclination. Initially numerous alternative characters were provided. Unusual shapes make this typeface useful for advertising and display work.

This is an American face designed by Lucian Bernhard for ATF in 1929. An extra light face with tall ascenders and stylized bars that extend off to the left. The lower-case sits on the baseline and the much-taller-than-normal capitals have an imaginary baseline that sits about two-thirds of the distance from the real baseline to the bottom of the EM.

Although not credited, the inspiration for this typeface, originally called "Dancer", has all the earmarks of the work of legendary lettering artist Alf Becker. Creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky, but not in the least ooky, this monocase face is just what the doctor ordered; Dr Frankenstein, that is. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

Karaoke JNL is one of the many alphabets created by the late Alf R. Becker that was showcased in Signs of the Times magazine from the 1930s through the 1950s. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media (and who is the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio) for providing Jeff Levine the research material from which this font design was modeled.

Goudy Type was designed by Frederic Goudy for ATF in 1916. He endeavored to create a lively design with some brush-lettering qualities. In his words, he believed he was still attempting to ‘find himself’ as a designer. Thirty years later he was shown the design and could hardly recollect its creation. Steve Matteson has digitized Goudy Type to preserve its place in typographic history.

Titling Gothic FB is an immense series of nearly fifty styles inspired by that century-old favorite ATF Railroad Gothic. Led by the Los Angeles Times and Gentleman’s Quarterly, U.S. publications are using David Berlow’s series to unify the structure of headlines from its wide spectrum of options. Titling Gothic FB started as a relative of Berlow’s Rhode family, but took its own direction; FB 2005

General Chang JNL is one of a number of fonts redrawn by Jeff Levine from the creative output of the late Alf R. Becker. Becker's alphabets were a monthly feature of Signs of the Times Magazine from the 1930s through the 1950s. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media (who also is the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio) for the resource material.

Based on the 1932 typeface Newport, designed by Willard T. Sniffin for ATF, this Art Deco standard packs a lot into multi-line heads and subheads due to its very short descenders, cleverly accomplished by “fudging the baseline” on the g, p, q, and y. All versions of this font include the Unicode 1250 Central European character set in addition to the standard Unicode 1252 Latin set.

Alf R. Becker was a noted sign painter, designer and the creator of hundreds of unique alphabets which were published in the trade magazine Signs of the Times during the 1930s through the 1950s. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media [and who is also the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati], Jeff Levine received some reference material on Becker's work. Becker displayed many of his type styles within decorative panels—a popular trend in the days when signs were hand-lettered. Using the reference material as a guide, Jeff has re-drawn twenty-six sign panels for adaptation to digital print work. While the designs in themselves are not thoroughly unique to Alf Becker, he has left behind some tangible examples of how sign painters embellished their lettering work. With the use of complementary colors and tones, these panels—joined with vintage lettering - classically recreate the warm and attractive advertising of years ago.

The Clearface types were originally designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1907. Their forms expressed the Zeitgeist of the turn of the 20th century; typical and distinguishing characteristics are the forms of the a" and the "k." The ATF version did not include an accompanying Italic. In 1978, ITC's Victor Caruso was licensed by ATF to develop a new serif typeface and matching italic based on the forms of Clearface. The result was ITC Clearface, a serif typeface with marked stroke contrast and italic weights. The teardrop-formed endings of the lowercase a, c and f (also found in Caslon) define the character of the face. The type's design is also distinguished by its small -- almost slab -- serifs, a large x-height, and little stroke contrast. ITC Clearface, with its historical touch, is good for both texts and headlines, but its slightly condensed nature performs at its best when it is allowed its space.

Historical typography makes a comeback. A revival of one of the most popular of a number of rugged typefaces used around the turn of the century, Croft revives the creation of Lewis Buddy III, known as "Roycroft" in 1912 ATF catalogs. It also, according to ATF, was designed "partly" by Morris Benton, around 1898. The original typeface might be considered an early form of grunge fonts. This typestyle maintains historical flavor, while also being relevant today. It has been expanded to have more discretionary ligatures and numerals sets for versatility, and maintains the original stylistic alternates and standard ligatures. See the 5th graphic for a comprehensive character map preview. Opentype features include: Full set of Inferiors and Superiors for limitless fractions. Tabular, Proportional, and Oldstyle figure sets. A small collection of Discretionary & Standard Ligatures. Stylistic Alternates for variations of several characters such as R, u, t, etc. Approx. 482 Character Glyph Set: Croft comes with a glyphset that includes standard & punctuation, international language support, and additional features.

Craw Modern was designed by Freeman Craw in 1958 and first released by The American Typefounders Company, (ATF). In typography, 'Modern' is a style of typeface (classification) developed in the late 18th century that continued through much of the 19th century. Characterized by high contrast between thick and thin strokes and flat serifs. Bodoni is among the most popular of the Moderns. Moderns are also known as Didone and New Antiqua.

Bernhard Modern was designed in 1937 by Lucian Bernhard for ATF. It is his personal version of the small x-height engravers’ old styles popular at the time. A perennial best-seller, Bernhard Modern remains popular in a wide variety of design and typesetting uses more that 60 years after its initial release. Bitstream’s version offers a wide array of typographer sets, including alternates, extensions, small caps and italic swashes.

In 1903, the typeface family Alternate Gothic was developed for ATF (American Type Foundry) by Morris Fuller Benton. It was Benton’s intent to solve many diverse layout problems with the development of a narrow Sans with different width values. The Alternate Gothic enjoys great popularity to this day. Therefore, Elsner+Flake re-worked the typeface family, added all European fixed accents and complemented it with an Antique version.

A September 29, 1920 edition of The San Diego Union ran the headline “Cicotte Confesses Baseball Fraud; Eight White Sox Players Indicted”. The White Sox baseball scandal was the first to reveal illegal gambling on the game. However, the headline itself was set in a bold slab serif type style [likely ATF Foster] which served as the model for Good Reporting JNL; which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

In 1903, the typeface family Alternate Gothic was developed for ATF (American Type Foundry) by Morris Fuller Benton. It was Benton’s intent to solve many diverse layout problems with the development of a narrow Sans with different width values. The Alternate Gothic enjoys great popularity to this day. Therefore, Elsner+Flake re-worked the typeface family, added all European fixed accents and complemented it with an Antique version.

Benton Modern was first prepared as a text face by Font Bureau for the Boston Globe and the Detroit Free Press. Design and proportions were taken from Morris Fuller Benton’s turn-of-the-century Century Expanded, drawn for ATF, faithfully reviving this epoch-making magazine and news text roman. The italic was based on Century Schoolbook. These display cuttings were prepared by Dyana Weissman and Richard Lipton; FB 2008

Balboa is a display design combining elements of early sans serif and grotesque types with contemporary types. It evolved from ATF Headline Gothic, Banner (a headline typeface I drew for the San Francisco Chronicle), and Newsweek No.9, a Stephenson Blake-like grotesque I designed for Roger Black's 1980 redesign of Newsweek Magazine. There are nine styles, including the three new styles that have been added in 2014: Medium, Light and Ultra Light.

Morris Fuller Benton’s drawings at the Smithsonian show a creative concern for effects of scale on typeface design. Tobias Frere-Jones began with 4pt ATF Franklin Gothic drawings, modifying proportions to mix with Poynter Oldstyle and Benton Gothic, and adjusting ends of the curved strokes of C G S a c e r s to suit news printing conditions. Poynter Gothic Text excels as subheads used with Poynter Oldstyle Text; FB 1997–99

Wedding Text was designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1901 for American Type Founders (ATF). The face was so popular that its forms soon began appearing with other font foundries under different names, Elite Kanzlei with D. Stempel AG, Comtesse with C.F. Rühl, Linotext with Linotype, etc. Its ornamental forms are not considered very legible by today's standards; therefore it should be used for headlines and short texts in point sizes 12 or larger.

The classic font as designed by F. W. Goudy for ATF in 1901, now in a hand-drawn version for a little bit of variation. Everybody else just offers another version of the same old Copperplate, but I now have a new rough one. Oh, just for the record, I have a couple of other versions of this font in my collection of the Copperplate Classic fonts. Your rough designer Gert Wiescher

This rugged rascal is based on at old ATF “original” design called “Hearst” (although Frederic Goudy claimed it was a pirated version of one of his designs). Its commanding, rough-hewn character makes it suitable for headlines, but its large x-height makes it practical for subheads as well. Available in roman and italic versions. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode 1252 Latin and Unicode 1250 Central European character sets.