The Vtg Stencil series of fonts by astype are based on real world stencils. The UK No. 2 design was derived from authentic one inch A2 Roman stencil plates from Great Britain, manufactured around the 1950s.

Reyes is a modern typeface with influence on consumer product labels from the early 1900s, is ideal for use in display texts and thanks to its 6 typographical weights lends itself to complex typographic design compositions.

A 1930s print ad for Miller Tires featured lettering in a condensed slab serif design. This provided a design model for the digital typeface Automotive Service JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The Azbuka™ typeface family has its roots in a fairly pedestrian source. “The idea came in part from an old sign in London that read ‘SPRINKLER STOP VALVE’,” says Dave Farey, designer of the typeface. Like all good sign spotters, Farey took a photograph of the sign and filed it away for possible use in a lettering or typeface design project. In Prague a number of years later, the street signs reminded Farey of the London signage - and his camera came out again. Comparing the two back in his studio, he realized that the signs from London and Prague were not as similar as he initially thought. However, they were enough alike to serve as the foundation for a no-frills, 21st century sans serif typeface family. “I wanted to draw a wide range of weights, italic and condensed designs all in one go,” recalls Farey, “rather than add on to the family later.” His goal was to create a family that could be used for text and display copy, with sufficient weights to provide a broad typographic palette. Indeed, the completed design, created in collaboration with fellow type designer Richard Dawson, consists of twenty typefaces in eight weights ranging from extra light to extra black. The five mid-range designs have complementary italics. Seven condensed designs round out the family. Azbuka’s lighter weights perform remarkably well in blocks of text composition. “They’re clean and legible - and perhaps a little boring,” says Farey, “but they are perfect for copy with a down-to-earth, yet contemporary flavor.” The heavier weights are equally well suited for a variety of display uses. The designs are authoritative but not overbearing and will readily make a strong statement without calling attention to themselves. The condensed weights of Azbuka are ideal for those instances where you have a lot to say - and not much room to say it. The name Azbuka? It’s Russian for “alphabet.” And what more appropriate name could there be for this utilitarian, industrial-strength type family than alphabet? The Azbuka family is available as a suite of OpenType Pro fonts. Graphic communicators can now work with this versatile design while taking advantage of OpenType’s capabilities. The Azbuka Pro fonts also offer an extended character set that supports most Central European and many Eastern European languages

Rasteroids Old is a typographic flashback to computing of the early 1980s, when 7-pin dot-matrix printers were the state of the art, and most home computer displays were TVs hooked up to RF modulators. Rasteroids Old not only captures the dot-matrix printer look, but recreates the rasterized appearance of text on those lower-resolution monitors. Rasteroids Old is a fixed width font lacking any descenders. Furthermore, the character set is limited to the subset of US-ASCII that would be available on a typical machine of 1980. As such, it is not intended for large areas of copy.

Zydeco JNL gives the 'Latin' style spur serif treatment to Jeff Levine's Halavah Twist JNL, for a new and fun typeface named after the Louisiana French-Creole music popularized by accordion player Clifton Chenier in the 1950s.

Sheet music for the 1930s song "Josephine" had its title hand lettered in a simple, bold sans design that is recreated in Song Sheet JNL. This bold sans is perfect for titling wherever strong emphasis is necessary.

Shockproof takes its inspiration from 1940s hand lettering. It's a display font that mixes elegance with a touch of informality. Great for use in identity, signage, posters, and anywhere that tall, cool typographic drink would be refreshing.

A 1940s film taken around Coney Island happened to show a sandwich vendor’s stand with its hand painted signs. The stylized Art Deco lettering inspired Snack Stand JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A circa 1900 type from the foundry of W. Grauneau, Berlin. A great utility face as it works well as the "plain" face with other decorative type of the same era. Reads well in paragraphs of copy.

A light hearted comic flare serif typeface inspired by a 1964 Speedy Gonzalez cartoon title, Hideway celebrates cartoon lettering. Alive with character, this typeface brings an air of familiarity as the retro lettering dances through your designs.

The Keynsia family revives the spirit of the 1950s. Its simple and elegant lines make for an eye-catching set of display faces. A range of different styles are on offer, all with an extensive character set.

Silhouette is a revival of the Empire typeface of the 1930s. It was designed to appeal to the art deco aesthetic at that time. Silhouette's character set is expanded to include lowercase, figures and Western European accents.

Gans Rasgos Escritura shapes (108 tails) was selected and freely interpreted from the vignettes catalog by Fundicion Gans published in 1920. You can combine these ornaments with your favorite fonts. We suggests the use of Pretoria Gross.

Carambola is a beautiful art deco typeface based on several posters from the 1920's. It is an elegant and stylish font with generous curves and sharp ends. Carambola is multilingual and comes in all caps only.

The thin and stylish Art Deco lettering of a neon sign above the Greyhound bus terminal entrance in a 1930s New York City photo inspired Transit Station JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

An offering from the 1910 specimen book from Inland Type Foundry, originally called Drew, provided the pattern for this engaging little face. Both versions support the Latin 1252, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

Roquette is the work of British designer Martin Wait, a casual all capital wedge serif typeface which brings the 1950s back to life. The undulating baseline and lively spot illustrations of Roquette will pep up any headline.

An ad from the 1930s for a Spanish company called Intex Textiles featured some hand lettering in a bold and unique stencil design. This is now available as Textile Stencil JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Public Safety JNL was inspired by a 1940s-era health poster issued through the WPA (Works Progress Administration). The font’s bold, blockish sans lettering commands attention and has been made available in both regular and oblique versions.

The first sans serif types were made in London in the early 19th century. They were severely modern, all caps and bold. The Figgins foundry, inventor of the term sans serif, showed a ?ne example in its specimen of 1836. The extra bold weight of Figgins Sans is a close revival of the original, with the addition of a lower case which retains its partly geometric, partly grotesque quality. The family is rounded out with other weights and an italic, and extended into Cyrillic and Greek, all executed in what is assumed to be as authentic a manner as possible, given the hypothetical nature of the exercise. Together with Scotch Modern, comprises The Modern Suite of matched fonts.

Camden is based on the types used in Camden's 'Remaines concerning Britaine' published in London in 1638. The object was to avoid the contradiction inherent in most 'distressed' typefaces made to give the effect of the imperfections in old print. This means that apparently worn characters are perfectly repeated throughout a setting. The makeup of the Camden fonts means that, with a little extra keying time, alternate characters may be brought in which overcome this. Also many characters are provided which have 'period identities' such as the long s with ligatures, tied sorts ct, sp and st, swash characters in the italic and the double vv, all of which can add a specific age identity.

In a specimen book from Stevens, Shanks & Sons, Ltd. of London (circa1930s) “Royal Gothic” was their version of a classic grotesk sans that had been in use as far back as 1899 when the Keystone Foundry called it “Charter Oak”. The terms "gothic" and "grotesk" were equally applied to early sans serif typefaces – at first not well embraced by printers as being too ugly (grotesque) for use. One familiar characteristic of early grotesk fonts (such as this one) is the numerous variations of character widths and shapes. By combining those two terms into a font name, the digital version of this design is called Gothic Grotesk JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Ronde Script (Ronde meaning "A kind of script in which the heavy strokes are nearly upright, giving the characters when taken together a round look.") is based on the original design named Parisian Ronde released in 1878 by the Chappelle Foundry in Paris. Other versions of this script include Inland French Script, French Script, French Plate, and Typo Upright. Different type foundries tied to the releases of this design include Mayeur (Paris), Stephenson Blake (London), Bernhardt Brothers & Spindler (Chicago), and ATF (Elizabeth, NJ). This style of script has been a very popular choice in designing wedding invitations and so many other formal announcements for over 130 years. Its very readable, formal and elegant with an antique or retro feel.

Xylo is a rugged, no-nonsense typeface that was originally designed in 1924 by the Benjamin Krebs type foundry in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Even back then, Xylo must have been very popular; the design made it at least as far as England. In 1995, after finding its design in an old London printer's reference book, the Letraset Type Studio faithfully converted Xylo into digital format. A time-proven display face, Xylo will convey a feeling of power and strength in any application. Best used big in headlines or logos; Xylo exudes an expressionistic and art deco spirit that just as much at home today as it was during the roaring 20s!

Curwen Sans is a monoline sans-serif dating from the early twentieth century. Though contemporary with Johnston’s Underground and Gill Sans, and emerging from the same artistic milieu, Curwen Sans was created solely for in-house use at the Curwen Press in London so never achieved a wide audience or recognition. The original face was cut only in a Medium weight, but the new digital family consists of four weights, each with an optically corrected Oblique, and all containing a full complement of Latin Extended-A characters. K-Type Curwen Sans comprises three packages: • Basic Family (Regular, Oblique, Bold, and Bold Oblique) • Light (Light and Light Oblique) • Medium (Medium and Medium Oblique)

Inspired by Typoart’s Minima, Tablica which comes in three styles - Regular, Italic, Bold - fills ideally narrow columns, charts and tables. Since all numerals are monospaced, you can sum up all numbers of a table. Though this is a condensed sans serif family, it offers a high legibility even in small degrees.

Based on an example of [circa] 1950 Finnish embroidery lettering, Evening Out JNL is a classic Art Deco design with contrasting thick and thin lines. This elegant and stylish typeface is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Part of the first typeface release package from ITC in 1970, Busorama melds Art Deco and 70s flower-power into a delightful sans serif design. Designed by Tom Carnase, this three-weight sans serif family still turns heads.

Zuboni Stencil is a bold, uppercase typeface based on a Russian design from around 1920 (original designer unknown). Its extensive character set supports most European languages that use the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets as well as modern Greek.

This unusual take on a typical woodtype typeface is based on a 1950s Stenso lettering template and, appropriately, takes its name from a small town in Texas not far from Dallas, locally noted for its grand Victorian homes.

Batchelder Elements contains 26 images from legendary Pasadena tilemaker Ernest Batchelder's design books of the 1920s. From cats to ducks to flowers -- even a bear and a couple of rabbits -- there's a design for everyone and every purpose.

The original Ronsard Crystal began its life as a single-weight VGC photo display font in the 1950s. We liked it so much, that we decided to design four traditional weights to go with the original inline version.

A WPA (Works Progress Administration) poster from the 1940s saying "Behind the Headlines" presented the title hand-lettered in a bold, condensed slab serif. This became the model for Newsmaker JNL, available in both regular and oblique versions.

This early 1900s type is from the German foundry of Schelter & Gieseke, and is typical of early twentieth century design. As usual, we have added all the modern necessities, such as monetary signs for the major commercial countries.

The opening title card for 1940's "Two Girls on Broadway" was the basis for Ticket Booth JNL. A typical Art Deco typeface, its features include a squared letter shape with rounded corners and a thin character weight.