In the 1930s the WPA (Works Progress Administration) sponsored a Federal art project. Many posters were produced that featured government-sponsored cultural events, health and safety tips and various other topics. One such poster from Pennsylvania has the words “Work with Care” in a hand-lettered inline sans design. This became the basis for Asbury Park JNL.

An interesting hand lettered example of Art Deco lettering (minus the letter ‘L’) was spotted on Pinterest and served as the inspiration for Deco Sketch JNL. Because there was no attribution as to the age or source of the alphabet, it can only be surmised that it was a scan from a 1930s or 1940s source. The original showed many of the irregularities of pen lettering, and had rounded terminals. The digital version has been redrawn more uniformly with flat terminals. Deco Sketch JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Art Week JNL is a wider variant of the lettering style used on many WPA (Works Progress Administration) posters for the arts in the Depression-era 1930s. Wider than the version used for Concert Series JNL, it also features an ‘A’ with a rounded top rather than the flat, square version.

Decorative monograms are easy with Longbranch Initials JNL from Jeff Levine.

Two word examples (“nice” and “bud”) from the J.G. Cooley & Co.’s Specimens of Wood Type catalog for the typeface ‘Roman Triple Extra Condensed Fifty Line’ offered only seven letters to work with. Despite this lack of characters, it inspired Compressed Wood JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Sales Event JNL is an inline sans that was modeled from examples of old wood type. Its casual, cheerful style well suits point-of-sale signage or banners, fun headlines and relaxed themes. The font is available in both the regular inline version and the black (solid) version.

Sheet music for the song "Today I Feel So Happy" from the 1932 motion picture "Sunshine Susie" provided both the visual model and the name for Sunshine Susie JNL, available in both regular and oblique versions. The lettering is a bold Art Deco thick-and-thin design, and comes not from the song's title, but the hand lettered name of the movie as it appeared on the cover the song folio.

The hand lettered opening title for the 1935 movie “Thanks a Million” is rendered in a condensed, thick and thin Art Deco sans serif design. It is now available as the digital typeface Stocks and Bonds JNL – in both regular and oblique versions.

Reverse Calendar Blocks JNL is the third typeface from Jeff Levine that allows the user to create a vintage-style calendar. Other versions available are Calendar Blocks JNL and Monthly Calendar JNL. The layout for the font is as follows: Numerals for displaying a year are on the 0-9 keys The 1-31 dates are located on the A-Z and a-e keys The combination dates of 23/30 and 24/31 are located on the f and g keys Days of the week (Sunday through Saturday) are on the keys h though n Months are found on the o through z keys A blank box (for balancing out layouts) is on the period key

Inspired by the hand lettered phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” in a 1923 promotional blurb for Speedball lettering pens, Pen Nib Western JNL recreates the decorative style of this vintage artistic gem in both regular and oblique versions.

An image of a vintage, hand-cut metal stencil with just a set of bold numerals inspired the design of Bold Metal Stencil JNL. The typeface is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Wood Type Grotesk JNL was re-drawn from a set of vintage wood type purchased from a closed rubber stamp shop. Although the style of lettering is referred to in old type catalogs as a "grotesk" face, in truth the lettering has charm and effectively gets the printed point across to the reader. This typeface is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A few scant examples of die cut gummed letters (R, C, Y and &) provided the design inspiration for Adhesive Serif Letters JNL. Influenced by the Caslon style, this typeface offers clean, legible titling. The sample letters were once manufactured by the Tablet and Ticket Company of Chicago and sold under their brand name of Willson's [named for the founder of the company]. Gummed letter sets were available in a variety of styles and sizes for various sign, merchandising and marking needs.

Sitting in a diner and looking upon a wall full of nostalgia, there hangs a picture of another older diner in some Northern city. The lettering from it's rooftop sign almost screams "Make a font out of this!"... so Jeff Levine did... "Hash and Beans JNL".

Another collection of various stock cuts, cartoons, embellishments, sales helpers, decorations and borders comprise Print Shop Sorts JNL, with all of the images re-drawn from vintage sources.

Online auctions continue to be a surprising wealth of font design inspiration. In this instance, a number of silk embroidered Art Deco initials inside inverted triangles inspired Deco Pennant Initials JNL. The uppercase version is white lettering on a black background – similar to the originals. On the lowercase keys is a set of initials that are black on white with a black border. Since the inverted triangles resemble pennants, there’s a solid black blank on the left parenthesis key and a outlined blank one on the right parenthesis key. In this way, the initials could be used for monograms or interspersed with the blanks to form short banner messages.

A beautiful and stylish pen lettered alphabet appears within the pages of the 1921 publication “How to Write Show Cards” and its Art Nouveau stylings made it a perfect candidate for a digital revival. Pleasant Show Card JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Based on a vintage set of kitchen labels, Jams and Jellies JNL is a font containing 52 of the most common names for jams, jellies and preserves as well as a blank label for creating your own flavor choices. Note: While this font may be used in many commercial advertising applications, any manufacture for retail sale of a complete set (or portion thereof) of these labels requires a special license from the font's author.

Wood Condensed Grotesk JNL is a more condensed version of the type style found in Wood Type Grotesk JNL. The font was a popular sans used for large posters or broadsheets as well as newspaper titles where more copy needed to be fit into limited space.

Take a classic hand lettered Art Deco alphabet, add in a treatment of dual straight vertical lines and the resulting typeface is Double Line Deco JNL.

Fine and Dandy JNL comes from the hand lettered title of the 1929 movie "Isle of Escape"; found on the sheet music for its theme song "My Kalua Rose". An engraved and fancy Roman, the style combines elements of Western, Art Nouveau and Art Deco into one attractive type design; available in both regular and oblique versions.

Bold Display Sans JNL is loosely based on one of the classic alphabets found within a Speedball Lettering Textbook of the 1940s; itself called "Bold Display". The original featured a stippled texture and inline curves placed in random patterns throughout the letters. This more simplified, all-caps version is for titling requirements where a strong, yet casual design is needed.

A set of transfer patterns for sewing decorative monogram initials on clothing was manufactured by Women's Day magazine circa the 1940s. Designed by renowned Copenhagen-born industrial artist and letterer Gustav Boerge Jensen [April 8, 1898 - June 27, 1954], these initials have been redrawn into a digital font entitled Danish Script Initials JNL. Large initials are on the uppercase A-Z keys, while smaller initials are on the lower case a-z keys and are centered to the larger cap height. An ornament is provided on the asterisk key, and can be placed between the small initials and the larger initial for decorative effect.

Narrow Roman Stencil JNL was modeled from a vintage brass sign for identification of a ballroom.

“One Hundred Alphabets for the Show Card Writer” was published in 1919 to afford sign artists the ability to create signs and show cards in then-contemporary lettering styles. One such alphabet was big, bold and representative of the Art Nouveau stylings popular in the early part of the 20th Century. Most likely it was applied to store sales and public events that were casual and informal, for its letter forms are free of any constraints. This design is now available as Fun Time Nouveau JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Antique Stencil Borders JNL collects twenty-six vintage border designs from various sources for complementing copy set in stencil lettering or in stand-alone decorative projects. NOTE: The purchase of this font does NOT include license to replicate the designs as commercial products for resale. To do so, a Derivative Products License must be obtained by contacting Jeff Levine. Contact information is found within the End User License Agreement.

Lettering found on the cover of the 1923 song "I Love Me (I'm Wild About Myself)" can take on various graphical possibilities. Although its design is Art Nouveau in concept, it is somewhat reminiscent of the "bubble letters" most school kids used to doodle on notebook and portfolio covers; yet the lettering style also evokes the 1960s-70s Hippie movement. As a sidebar, a couple of lines from the song's lyrics were used by Jeff Levine's late mother to chastise him as a youth when he got "a little too full of himself". The lyrics were: "I love me! I love me! I'm wild about myself! I love me! I love me! My picture's on the shelf!"

A couple of pieces of sheet music from France [circa 1925] offered the inspiration for Chanson De Paris JNL (Song of Paris), which is available in both regular and oblique versions. This hand lettered Art Nouveau style features a unique take on thick-and-thin lettering which foreshadows the Art Deco typefaces to come during the 1930s.

The 1912 publication "Essentials of Lettering" has an example of a hand lettered, condensed spurred serif design called "Compressed Roman". This is now available digitally as New Thin Roman JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Signs of Yesterday JNL brings another twenty-six vintage signs inspired by a series of decals once made by the Duro Decal Company (now Duro Art Industries) of Chicago. This font complements the original twenty-six designs found in Too Much Information JNL. There are two blank sign panels on the parenthesis keys for use in creating custom retro signage.

At first glance, Handbills and Posters JNL bears a strong resemblance to Classroom JNL. True, they both share the visual qualities that are based on Franklin Bold Condensed, but this is where the similarity ends. Handbills and Posters JNL is a refined re-draw of the classic design, based largely on vintage typographic examples. There are also some character variances. Classroom JNL is a rougher alphabet with varying curves and lines, and resembles such letters traced and cut out of construction paper for a bulletin board display at school.

Do It Yourself JNL was modeled after self-adhesive vinyl letters and numbers manufactured by Duro Art Industries of Chicago - formerly the Duro Decal Company. The hand-drawn look of the original lettering was retained by Jeff Levine to stay true to the design, and the rectangles that border each glyph represent the pieces of self-adhesive vinyl onto which the characters were silk screened. Limited character set.

French Stencil Moderne JNL is modeled from an alphabet found in the 1930s publication "100 Alphabets Publicitaires" by M. Moullet, and is available in both regular and oblique versions. Strongly resembling the stencil motif of Futura Black, this French stencil alphabet has enough variations to give it a unique design flavor all its own.

The sheet music cover of Lew Brown and Albert Von Tilzer's 1917 wartime song "Au Revoir, But Not Goodbye (Soldier Boy)" had its title hand-lettered in a condensed sans serif design with the influence of Art Nouveau styling. This has now been re-drawn digitally as See You Later JNL.

Playing around with a previous design, Jeff Levine came up with Cut Paper Stencil JNL, a typeface with both an Art Deco flair and the look of letters made from cut paper.

A makeup ad in the December, 1937 issue of Modern Screen magazine inspired Single Line Deco JNL, an Art Deco monoline which is available in both regular and oblique versions. The font is based on the hand lettered headline touting “Modern Eyes”.

Sheet music featuring a song from the 1933 film "Torch Singer" starring Claudette Colbert was the basis for Dine and Dance JNL. A multi-line Art Deco design, it epitomizes both the typographic style and the night life of the time, when supper clubs featuring big bands were at their peak. Torch Singers were female vocalists who typically sang melancholy love songs of lost love and heartbreak.

Amongst some pages scanned and posted online of old wood type alphabets comes this lovely, ornamental design in a reversed style of white lettering on black rectangular boxes. This classic set of wood type is now available digitally as Wood Fancy Reverse JNL. There is a narrow blank box on the “less than” key for use as an end cap, and a wider blank box on the “greater than” key to use between words as a blank space if so desired.

Print Shop Treasures JNL is another fun collection of nostalgic cartoons, stock cuts, corner pieces, embellishments, sales helpers and miscellany; all carefully re-drawn from examples of vintage letterpress pieces.

Part and Parcel JNL is a collection of twenty-six packaging and shipping labels in a retro style. Use them for spot illustrations or scale them to make actual labels. Please refer to the license agreement for specific use in commercial applications regarding derivative or salable works.