A series of lettering guides called “Mimeostyle” for the A. B. Dick Company of Chicago (produced for use in making mimeograph machine printing stencils) were custom manufactured by the Wright-Regan Instrument Company (Wrico). One design featured a sans serif letter produced in Shadow relief, with a touch of Art Deco flair. This is now available as Template Shadow JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Many alphabet style examples from the Speedball Textbook on pen lettering have offered amateurs and professionals a source of inspiration since its first publication in 1915. A 1940s edition presented a simple sans serif design rendered with the style ‘B’ round nib pen point, and has been recreated as the digital type face Pen Sans Rounded JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

First published in 1938, Letters and Lettering by Paul Carlyle and Guy Loring was a textbook on lettering examples and how to do them. On one of the pages was found a solid black (counterless) Art Deco sans serif design that in its many variations so typified the era. The example shown in that book served as the model for Postmodern Moderne JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The Wright-Regan Instrument Company (Wrico) was one of the leading manufacturers of lettering templates for many years. Aside from their own line of products, they also did custom manufacturing. A series of lettering guides called “Mimeostyle” for the A. B. Dick Company of Chicago (produced for use in making mimeograph machine printing stencils) featured an art Deco squared letter design with rounded corners. This is now available digitally as Template Sans JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Most folks might picture wood type lettering as the fancy styles of the 1880s which so perfectly evoked images of the Old West. Occasionally there is an exception to that rule, as an online image of some vintage wood letters with an Art Deco influence inspired a revival as a digital type face. Wood Lined JNL features a bold alphabet with an engraved line throughout the characters, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Toward the end of the 1920s, Art Deco influences were starting to creep into modern design. The hand lettered title on the cover of the1928 sheet music for “Fascinatin’ Vamp” not only embraced the new Deco movement, but sent it on a wild typographic ride. Letters of mixed thicknesses and stylings made up the two word title, and this unusual group of letter shapes became the inspiration for Free Form Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Jeff Levine took Crown Heights JNL [named after his childhood neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY] and gave it a make-over; transforming it into a Western-style all-caps display face called Homesteader JNL. The point of interest being the rounded characters: C, G, O and Q - usually not as geometric in Old West typography.

Brer Rabbit (or Brother Rabbit) is the central figure in an oral tradition passed down by African-Americans. Brer Rabbit is a trickster, just like the other popular trickster character in African stories called Anansi the spider. Brer Rabbit was based on an old font of mine called Rabbit On The Moon. It is a nice, cute children’s book font that comes with extensive language support and Brer Rabbit himself, in the shape of the alternative asterisk glyph.