An antique, hand-cut metal stencil for the Chicago-Burlington rail route stating “CB&Q RR – Private Property” inspired the sans serif stencil design Midwest Railway JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Frank H. Atkinson was a popular Art Nouveau sign painter in Chicago, Illinois. He designed signs for the Cadillac Motor Car Co., Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and the department store Marshall Field. Oddly enough, he even designed signs for other sign painters. In 1908 he published a book, Sign Painting, which sold well. French Plug, a bold, rounded, all-cap design in an American Art Nouveau style from that book. It has a relaxed, easy-going informality that is useful for ads and flyers. It also would have fit very nicely with many French posters of the period.

A neat face with pronounced spur serifs which several foundries have already digitized. We like ours better though, because we have drawn a lowercase which was lacking in the original. Barnhart Bros. & Spindler of Chicago introduced this type in 1888.

Our notes say this was originated at the Barnhart Bros. & Spindler foundry in Chicago, and named Cable. Perhaps so, but we didn't find it in any of our BB&S catalogs. We made a few changes to improve the color.

Adhesive Letters JNL was drawn from sample letters and numbers once manufactured by the Tablet and Ticket Company of Chicago. Originally sold under the brand name of Willson's, these gummed letters were available in a number of styles and sizes.

This popular type was manufactured by the Crescent Type Foundry of Chicago and sold on their behalf by a half dozen other foundries. Introduced in the early 1890s, just as tastes were swinging away from the excesses of the Victorian period.

AdvertiserÆs Gothic Light, from a volume of headline fonts, was designed by Robert Wiebking in 1917. Wiebking was a skilled type engraver from Chicago who created his own pantographic machine, used to cut punches drawn by other successful type designers, including Frederic Goudy.

Beauvoir is based on a sample of Art Nouveau period hand-drawn poster lettering designed by Chicago designer Frank Atkinson. The original sample was limited, so we extrapolated from it and added new characters and character variations to make the final result more interesting.

Handlettering in an ad from the 1920s for a Chicago engraving company provided the inspiration for this fine, fat, flowing face, full of fun and antique charm. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode 1252 Latin and Unicode 1250 Central European character sets.

Stencil Octoid JNL was inspired by a set of twelve inch tall stencil letters and numbers made by Duro Art Industries in Chicago. The bold type style with angled rather than rounded corners gives the font a strong feel of industry or military usage.

Sign Project JNL is based on vintage water-applied decals once made by the Meyercord Decal Company of Chicago (and later Carol Stream), Illinois. These decals were popular during the 1950s and 1960s for window signage, boat identification, mailbox names and numbers and hundreds of other projects.

A set of cling vinyl letters and numbers for titling home movies or slides is the basis for Home Movies JNL. The set was made by the Clingtite Letters Company of Chicago and retailed for $2.95. It was advertised in many photographic publications of the 1950s.

This interesting type was introduced by the Chicago firm of Marder, Luse & Company in 1890, about the time designers were beginning to lose some of the excessive ruffles and flourishes that characterized the Victorian age. Originally a caps-only font, we have added a lowercase to match.

The classic blues album "I'm Jimmy Reed" released on the legendary Vee-Jay label out of Chicago featured title lettering in a bouncy, fun, casual take on the classic Latin Wide style of alphabet. Bluesman JNL offers a full digital typeface based on that album titling.

Designed by Ernst Lauschke in 1888 and issued by Barnhart Bros. & Spindler foundry in Chicago under the name Dormer. It was revived in 1923 by the foundry with a new name, Pekin. We have "regularized" the face for modern use, but have included the changed characters as alternates.

Signboard JNL is based on die-cut cardboard display lettering once made by the Duro Decal Company (now Duro Art Industries) of Chicago, Illinois. Available in various sizes, these letters and numbers could be affixed to a number of different surfaces to make affordable signs, displays and show cards.