A disc jockey-only promotional sleeve for a 1964 [45 rpm] release of “Close to Me” and “Let Them Talk” by Dan Penn featured the song titles printed in a stencil typeface on the record sleeve. Closely resembling a stencil version of Franklin Gothic but with its own unique characteristics, this design has been reinterpreted as Turntable Stencil JNL and is available in both regular and oblique versions. For trivia buffs, Dan Penn is a singer-songwriter-record producer, often collaborating with Dewey Lindon “Spooner” Oldham; both closely associated with the late Rick Hall’s Fame recording studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. In 1964, Hall started the Fame record label, and for a time it was distributed by Vee-Jay Records of Chicago, the first major Black-owned record label in the United States. Penn’s release was only the second for the new label; Fame 6402.

Alphacal JNL and Alphacal Black JNL are variants of the same lettering style found in Jeff Levine's Juneway JNL font... all based on water-applied decals once made by the Duro Decal Company (now Duro Art Industries) of Chicago, Illinois. Alphacal JNL can be used alone as an outline font (best at 18 pt. and above) or with Alphacal Black JNL as a backfill. Note: Perfect registration is not guaranteed. Some user adjustments may be necessary.

Mandarin font first appeared with the Type Founders of Chicago and is an interpretation of artistically drawn Asian brush calligraphy. The stylized Asian atmosphere is not created only by the forms of the figures but also by the very name of the typeface. A mandarin was a high official of the ancient Chinese empire. Alphabets like Mandarin font are often used for the menus, signs and advertisements of Asian restaurants as well as for businesses with Asian products.

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.

Another offbeat typeface inspired by the lettering on a design by Patrick Owsley for the Chicago Bears. There's nothing more lively than animated text, and Bear Club has that flavor in two ways. With counter inspirations drawn from fonts like Ad Lib and Nightclub, an automatic alternating caps and alternate caps feature, as well as a contextual alternates set that creates a true animated bounce, just like Hip Hopper. Let the fun begin with this spunky, lighthearted and heavy-weighted comic typeface.

Before ink jet and laser printers; before copy machines, the main way to make multiples of anything not provided by printing press was by a mimeograph machine or spirit duplicator. The mimeograph utilized a porous drum which inked the backside of a waxed stencil sheet. Unlike traditional stencils which have cut out areas that are directly inked or painted, a mimeo stencil has the area to be printed scratched away by removing the wax coating with a stylus. The resulting image allows the ink from the drum to seep through the sheet and transfer to the blank paper. Based on a plastic lettering guide once manufactured by the A.B. Dick Company of Chicago, Mimeograph Template JNL is available in regular and oblique versions. Albert Blake Dick, the company’s founder, coined the term ‘mimeography’. The font’s character shapes follow the routed letters of the template, complete with rounded terminals. An earlier font release [designed with flat terminals and some alternate characters] is available as Interoffice Memo JNL.

NoExit is an industrial vernacular type system with multiple widths. Originally designed for the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel, its inspiration was an old sign that said “STAIRWAY” found the hotel’s old building. A pointed uppercase letter A stood up against the mechanic aspect of the rest of the letters, and that discrepancy was love at first sight. From that, we developed a type system in multiple widths and weights that looks best at large sizes. It’s an ideal typeface for signage systems, magazine headlines, posters and packaging.

Powerful and angular. Power Grid comes in four versions: Regular, Stencil, Inline and Rounded. Inspired by 1920s constructivist posters, it's perfect for industrial and bold applications. Power Grid is all caps and includes a handful of alternate glyphs. 8 fonts 4 styles: Regular, Stencil, Inline and Rounded Alternate characters

A few scant examples of some condensed Roman style water-applied decals inspired Sign Letters JNL. The decals were once part of the gold and black "Signmaker" letters and numbers once manufactured by the Duro Decal Company of Chicago and were sold through hardware and variety stores across the country. The condensed letters (which were eight inches in height) did not sell as well as Duro's mainstay sizes of 1/2 inch to 3-1/2 inches and were discontinued long before the rest of the line was supplanted by self-adhesive lettering.

A comprehensive set of initials (usually referred to as Uncials, Lombardic Initials, or Lombards) of the French variety, adapted from Bergling, J.M. (1918), Art Alphabets and Lettering (Second Edition), Chicago: Blakely-Oswald Printing Company. The font contains over one hundred glyphs, including character outlines for two-color layering. Suitable to accompany most Gothic (especially Textura and Rotunda) and many Roman typefaces, or to be displayed as drop caps or in full titles and headings. Specimen, detailed character map, OpenType features, and font samples available at Alter Littera’s The Initials “Bergling A” Font Page.

The compendium Alphabete: ein Schriftaltas von A bis Z listed the pattern for this family of faces under the name Chicago which, owing to the number of other faces using the same name, makes its origins difficult to ascertain. Nonetheless, its soft lines and round forms have a timeless appeal makes this family an excellent choice for both headlines and text use. 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.

Bold, muscular, vaguely oriental, Wedge Gothic ML is the original name of this font released by Barnhart Bros. and Spindler of Chicago in 1893. The straight-forward, no-nonsense name tells us exactly what to expect: sans-serif letterforms based on wedge-shaped vertical strokes. The typeface was dropped for awhile -- it does not appear in the 1907 catalog for example -- but reappeared in 1925 as Japanette. What is the opposite of "straight-forward" anyway? According to McGrew, Wedge Gothic was originally created for the Chicago Herald newspaper. The designer is unknown. A distinctive display face, useful when a strong and unusual statement is desired. Wedge Gothic ML features: 1. Glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Western Europe, the 1254 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Total of 335 glyphs. 2. OpenType GSUB layout features: pnum, ornm, hist & salt. 3. 66 kerning pairs. 4. Both tabular & proportional numbers. 5. Alternate bullets. The zip package includes two versions of the font at no extra charge. There is an OTF version which is in Open PS (Post Script Type 1) format and a TTF version which is in Open TT (True Type)format. Use whichever works best for your applications.

The font DXAngelusMediaval was developed on the basis of the Angelus Mediaval font, which was issued by Russian type foundry from the beginning of the 20th century (type foundry of G. Bertgold, St. Petersburg and Moscow, before 1904). Probably, the font is a reworking of the DeVinne font (1892 (?), Designer Nicholas J. Werner) of the American Central Type Foundry. For the reconstruction, we used examples of font prints: Cyrillic from the catalog "Art Fonts", 1929, Latin part - Chicago font, from the catalog "La Fonderie Typographique Francaise" (FTF) 1924. In addition, in the font are available Digits of the old style and ligature.