Among many of Alf Becker’s contributions to Signs of the Times magazine was 1 1935 offering named Chicago Modern Thick and Thin, which provided the inspiration for this face. It’s a perfect choice for friendly headlines with an Art Deco vibe. Both versions include the complete Unicode Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, as well as localization for Lithuanian, Moldovan and Romanian.

Sheldrake JNL is the second in a series of display fonts modeled from actual water-applied decals that were manufactured by the Duro Decal Company of Chicago (now Duro Art Industries). The font's name derives from the actual phone exchange for Duro, back in the days when a telephone listing had a name-number assignment for recognition. In this case, their number began as "SH(eldrake)-3".

A vintage matchbook advertising the New York Liquor Mart – oddly enough, located in Chicago, Illinois – featured a pen and ink line drawing of the store’s exterior. The Art Deco lettering on the mansard was portrayed with a straight left shadow (as opposed to drop cast or extruded), making for an interesting multi-line typeface design. This is now digitally available as Packaged Goods JNL.

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.

The front page of a late-1940s sales catalog for the [now defunct] Duro Decal Company of Chicago had its company name hand-lettered in a tall, condensed chamfered sans serif type design. Although chamfered lettering had been popular for decades, the way the "R" was shaped gave the letters a bit of an Art Deco influence, and this influence was carried through in the creation of Durable JNL.

A 1931 poster for the film The Man from Chicago provided the pattern for this quirky Deco delight. Although the fonts is all uppercase, tasty variants have been added in the lowercase positions, and all possible letter combinations have been kerned, so you can mix the forms freely. This font contains the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

In 1994, Apple® Computer, Inc., asked David Berlow for “a future gothic” to replace Chicago®, their system font. Now called Charcoal®, the design was released with Mac® OS 8 in 1996. Through operating system bundles it found its way into every form of design. Released from constraint, Berlow designed Truth FB, a radical series with a spectrum of seven weights. Like its forbear, Truth FB opens new design avenues; FB 2005

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.

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.

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.

It is 1984 and Ridley Scott’s commercial for Apple tells us, “You’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984’.” The first Mac comes on the market. The Mac interface includes a font for use in small sizes called Chicago. The first version was designed by Susan Kare. The font’s modern grid-like character was also used for the first iPod screens, which is why this font is also associated with music. Today’s font upgrade, Little Micro Sans, is suited for small-point texts, product labels, lists of ingredients, and small captions in books, magazines, websites or applications. For online use, a variable format is particularly handy as it offers all font styles in a single file, has a faster display time and takes up less memory. Little Micro Sans is a revolution for small sizes. Specimen: http://carontwice.com/files/specimen_Little_Micro_Sans.pdf

The box cover of “Drawing Stencils No. 3 for Use on Slate or Paper” [a children’s drawing set produced by Montgomery, Ward & Company of Chicago circa the 1890s] had its title in an elegant spurred Roman type face. Working from the few letters available, a complete character set was created that resulted in Antique Packaging JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. To note, this is the 1500th font release from Jeff Levine Fonts since its inception in January of 2006.

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.

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.

Mimeograph Lettering JNL is based on one of the numerous plastic lettering templates once manufactured by the A.B. Dick Company of Chicago and is available in both regular and oblique versions. 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. As with a companion font (Mimeograph Template JNL), the character shapes follow the routed letters of the template, complete with rounded terminals. A previous font release [designed with flat terminals and some alternate characters] is available as Interoffice Memo JNL.

NixonScript is a display typeface inspired by the typographic emancipation given voice by 1950s and '60s north American vernacular type. NixonScript's starting point was lettering found on a 1960s camera found in a Chicago junk shop, but its development saw it transformed from a punchy sans-serif to a more thoughtful serif, with a lowered x-height and a vibe of almost priestly piousness. Rather than a simple regular italic, a bold italic is offered. During its development, the regular version seemed almost placid but with the double emphasis of bold and italic, NixonScript gained an energetic, self-congratulatory form.

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.

Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital in the foothills of the Himalayas, is not like any other city. That's why Kathmandu Bold is not like any other font going by the name of a town, either: This font is not as digital as Chicago but not as solid as Aachen. Kathmandu Bold's capital letters are slightly irregular, giving the font its unique character, which is extended and more black than bold. Everyone who has hitherto regarded "naïve" and "cool" as being an oppositional pair should check out this font by Ingo Juergens. For special needs, such as foreign languages, there is a host of special characters.