Two attractive cast metal door signs reading "Men" and "Ladies" from back in the Art Deco era inspired the idea for Nameplate JNL. The left parenthesis key starts the border decoration, and the right parenthesis key closes it off. Nameplate JNL has just a basic A-Z and numeral set; the letters "floating" within the parallel lines of the border to form complete nameplates, apartment numbers or any similarly encased words. A period, comma, apostrophe and dash are on their respective keys. A small blank space is on the left bracket key, a medium space is on the right bracket key and a large space is on the left brace key. There is a small, complete frame on the right brace key. For names such as "MacDonald" or "McIntyre", the small "ac" is on the colon key and the small "c" is on the semicolon key. No kerning has been applied in order to give the type more of an antique, "mechanically assembled" look.

London-based designer David Quay designed ITC Quay Sans in 1990. One of the precursors to the long run of functionalist European sans serif faces that has been a dominating force in type design since the 1990s, ITC Quay sans is based on the proportions of 19th Century Grotesk faces. Grotesk, the German word for sans serif, defines an entire branch of the sans serif movement, which culminated in the 1950s with the design of Helvetica. ITC Quay Sans is made up of very simple, legible letters. The weights of the strokes throughout the alphabet vary very little. Microscopic flares on the ends of each terminal add a bit of dimension to the design. This helps prevent the onset of the monotony, a danger when one repeats countless near mono-weight stroked letters throughout a large body of text. ITC Quay Sans is a very readable face; it works equally well in all sizes. Six fonts of the ITC Quay Sans typeface are available: Book, Book Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Black, and Black Italic. ITC Quay Sans is similar to Hans Eduard Meier's Syntax, and Tim Ahrens' Linotype Aroma."