The 1930s-era French alphabet collection entitled “La Lettre Dans le Decor & La Publicite Modernes” (which somewhat translates to “The Letter in Modern Decor and Advertising”) has page after page of attractive and unusual type interpretations. One particular Art Deco design puts an entirely different spin on the classic “rounded terminals and geometric design”. Unusual character shapes add a fresh new/old take to the “Streamline Movement”. The aptly-named Deco Francois JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Toward the end of the 1920s, Art Deco influences were starting to creep into modern design. The hand lettered title on the cover of the1928 sheet music for “Fascinatin’ Vamp” not only embraced the new Deco movement, but sent it on a wild typographic ride. Letters of mixed thicknesses and stylings made up the two word title, and this unusual group of letter shapes became the inspiration for Free Form Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

From the title on the sheet music for the 1935 composition "Along Tobacco Road" comes Deco Triline JNL in both regular and oblique versions. Reminiscent of Broadway if done as a neon sign, this typeface virtually shouts about the Manhattan nightlife of the 1930s. For maximum readability, space the letters a bit wider than normal.

In their book "Lettering of Today" by W. Ben and Ed C. Hunt, an Art Deco "thick and thin" alphabet with some stylized characters (which leaned a lot toward a calligraphic style) stood out from the rest. This is now available as Stylized Deco JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Although the Art Deco movement is generally attributed to the 1930s and 1940s, a number of design influences were showing up during the late 1920s in what is referred to as the Art Nouveau period. The Dutch illustrator Anton Kurvers’ hand lettering on the front cover of the (1927) magazine “Het Vlaamsche Volstooneel” clearly shows the clean lines and Avant Garde geometrics that foreshadow Art Deco. This attractive pre-Deco lettering has been recreated digitally as Dutch Deco JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

In an online edition of Modern Screen Magazine for March of 1936, many of the article headlines were set in a bold, slab serif inline font which (although possessing some Art Deco traits) could double as a sports font. This is now available as Team Deco JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Stencil Deco JNL was an experimental modification of Jeff Levine's Cardboard Cutouts JNL font, originally designed from an authentic stencil source circa the 1950s. This version is a fusion of the Art-Deco style and a modern, trendy approach to the stroke weights.

Every face tells a story but this font is 77 stories high (1,046 feet with antenna included)! A lofty companion to Empire State Gothic , Empire State Deco is a tall, stately font containing four different styles, sometimes contradictory, united by the desire to be modern. Those familiar with the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes will notice a post-postmodernism combined with the fine craftsmanship and rich materials for which those awfully nice chaps at Comicraft are known. During its Art Deco heyday, Comicraft represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress -- this new font recaptures those halcyon days in letter form.

a fifities style font

The model for Deco Moderne JNL was the hand lettered title on the sheet music cover of "Did You Ever See A Dream Walking" (from the 1933 Paramount musical "Sitting Pretty" starring Jack Oakie, Jack Haley and Ginger Rogers). The typeface is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The movie poster for the 1936 film “Dodsworth” had its title hand lettered in a thin Art Deco sans serif with a mix of both stylized and squared characters. Expanding on this unusual lettering combination, the final results became Drama Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Deco Neue Wilde is a filter font based on Deco, an original Open Window classic. It sort of speaks for itself but it reminds me of a lava lamp and the countless shapes that you could waste time watching appear.

a naive typeface from Art Deco ages

A hand lettered Art Deco ‘stencil’ design used in various ads for “Holiday” and other Pathé films was found in the July 22, 1930 issue of “The Film Daily”. Similar in style to Futura Black and other like designs, it is now available as Deco Holiday JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

A quirky and unusual Art Deco monoline typeface can be found within the pages of the Esterbrook Drawlet Pen instruction book [circa the 1940s]. Drawlet was the direct competitor to Speedball Lettering pen nibs. This unusual type design of varying width and character shapes is now available digitally as Oddly Deco JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Family Deco JNL was inspired by the bold Art Deco hand lettering of the movie credits for the 1936 Laurel and Hardy comedy “Our Relations”, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The hand lettered word ‘puzzles’ from the box cover of a 1940s set of metal “connected” puzzle pieces manufactured by the A.C. Gilbert Company was the initial typographic model, but some additions and changes were made. Instead of the right side of the ‘P’ being a semi-circle, it was changed to a more conservative ‘’squared’ look. After drawing out all of the necessary glyphs, the overall height of the characters was extended to make the letters and numbers appear taller and narrower. The end result is Narrow Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

This decorative, scalloped thick-and-thin Art Deco type design is one of the many inspirations found within the pages of the 1934 French lettering book “L'Art du Tracé Rationnel de la Lettre”. Now in digital format, Fancy Deco JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

ArtDeco Neue was design to give a strong characteristic to the titles of the Portuguese Art Magazine. From classic sans fonts (usual used by artists and galleries) this font developed with the double geometric lines of Art Deco architecture creating a contemporary design. The final result of each word depends of the choices the designer makes for each glyph.

Solid Deco JNL was modeled after a small sign with the word "restaurant" in an unusual Art Deco solid lettering style. It was spotted within the same image of the Lenox Lounge in New York which gave forth the neon letters that became Sign Sans JNL.

A whimsical array of deco pointers (up/down/left/right) - great for adding directions or pointers to documents, maps, posters, greetings, or simply used as decorative elements. See also 4Point Florals and 4Point GreekFret.

Sheet music for the tune "Put Your Arms Around Me Honey" (from the 1937 film "Coney Island" starring Betty Grable, George Montgomery and Cesar Romero) has the song title hand lettered in a condensed Art Deco sans serif design. This became the basis for Deco Nights JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. For trivia buffs, the song was written by Junie McCree and Albert Von Tilzer and was first featured in the Broadway show "Madame Sherry" in 1910 and was revived for a second time in the 1949 Judy Garland -Van Johnson film "In the Good Old Summertime".

A June 18, 1929 issue of the Hollywood trade paper “The Film Daily” ran an ad for a film called “The Power House”. The film’s title was hand lettered in an extra bold sans serif design with strong Art Deco influences. This is now available digitally as Deco Power JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

a naive art deco font

The dreams that you dare to dream really can come true when you perk up your headlines with this re-imagining of Saul Bass's 1982 glitzy Deco classic, Rainbow Bass. For best results at large sizes, choose the TrueType version, rendered at a full 2,048 UPM. Both versions include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, as well as localization for Moldovan and Romanian.

Habana Deco ML was inspired by a hand-lettered sign on the stucco exterior of a small pharmacy in modern-day city of Havana, Cuba. It, in turn, was based on the fat-faced Art Deco lettering of the late 20s and early 30s, especially the Futurismo posters out of Italy, as well as alphabets designed in The Netherlands, France, USA and even the Soviet Union. There are 24 stylistic alternate glyphs (SALT), many inspired by a variety of these sources, including a couple from the sign in the front of the Congress Hotel in South Beach, Miami. The others features of the Habana Deco include 363 glyphs, 184 kerning pairs (KERN), 14 ornaments and shapes (ORNM) and 15 discretionary ligatures (DLIG). This is a font with which you can have fun. 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.

Hand lettering found across the sheet music cover of 1931's "Bend Down, Sister" [from the Eddie Cantor film "Palmy Days"] covered a couple of varying Art Deco styles; both made with a round-tipped pen nib. Deco Pen JNL combines the best of both styles into one design that's available in both regular and oblique versions.

An interesting hand lettered example of Art Deco lettering (minus the letter ‘L’) was spotted on Pinterest and served as the inspiration for Deco Sketch JNL. Because there was no attribution as to the age or source of the alphabet, it can only be surmised that it was a scan from a 1930s or 1940s source. The original showed many of the irregularities of pen lettering, and had rounded terminals. The digital version has been redrawn more uniformly with flat terminals. Deco Sketch JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

ITC Handel Gothic Arabic is a modern Kufi design by Nadine Chahine, created especially for headlines and display purposes. It comes in 5 different weights ranging from Light to Heavy which extends its usage capabilities considerably. The design is mono-linear and with the typical geometric construction associated with the Kufi style. Its usage can vary from headlines to logos to packaging. Given its large counters, it can function quite well in very small sizes too. Its pattern is quite homogenous, so it is not recommended to use this for whole paragraphs. The character set supports Arabic, Persian, and Urdu and also includes Basic Latin.

Wardruna Arabic is a method of writing Arabic with a Runic-like alphabet devised by Devin Lester. He imagined that if some vikings had settled in the Middle East, they might have started speaking Arabic and writing it with a version of the Runic alphabet. This particular alphabet is based on Tolkien's Cirth Runes. A band of vikings went to Baghdad after raiding in Europe. The markets in Constantinople were closed as the Turks had just sacked the city. These men had heard of the great market in Baghdad and went there to sell their wares, seeing that this land was warm and fertile they decided to stay. They ended up settling the land and taking Arab wives and having children, because of thier Northern European accent their Arabic evolved into a part-Arabic dialect of Iraqi arabic. This is why today you see a few Arabs with green eyes and dark blonde or red hair. The Arabic alphabet was too fluid for them and vikings disdained the use of paper as a persons writings could be burned, so the evolved their runes to fit Arabic.

This Arabic typeface is one of Parachute’s most involved text typefaces. For the first time -back in 2010- a contemporary Arabic equivalent to a comprehensive DIN series of fonts was available. In fact, this set of fonts contains the most complete and powerful array of Arabic features commercially today. It comes in eight weights and includes Latin. Based on the DIN Text Pro superfamily, Parachute® released -in collaboration with designer Hasan Abu Afash- 2 new versions. DIN Text Arabic is the basic Arabic version which includes Latin and supports all variations of the Arabic script such as Persian, Urdu and Pashto. The second version DIN Text Universal is the most advanced DIN superfamily ever. It combines the powerful DIN Text Pro with DIN Text Arabic bringing the number of glyphs to 3320 per font. It is also enhanced with 30 advanced opentype features and kerning for all languages. Altogether it supports hundreds of languages, proving to be an essential tool for corporations which operate internationally. The whole family consists of eight weights from extra black to hairline. DIN Text Arabic is featured in the recent book Arabesque 2 by Gestalten.

CONCEPT/CHARACTERISTICS 
The handmade, dirty and yet modern character of the font was designed with analog tape on paper and later digitized. The motto is sticky, wrinkled and rough APPLICATION AREA The dirty, rough and fancy font „rip TAPE“ would look good at dis­play size for poster, flyer, comics and gra­phic novel let­te­ring and logos. Head­lines in maga­zi­nes or web­sites, packa­ging, music covers or webbanner etc. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS 
Head­line Font | Dis­play Font | Grunge/DIY Font „rip TAPE“ OpenType Font with & 78 gly­phs & 2 styles (regu­lar, fixed).

The letters in TapedUp are constructed from straight pieces of what could be masking tape. The letters have a unsophisticated or unpolished quality to them. The typeface is caps-only but many of the shapes on the lower-case keys differ from those on the upper-case keys. It was formed with a template used for several letterbat fonts and also typefaces Rumpled and Tinkerer. The family has six styles: regular, bold, shadowed, oblique. bold oblique, and shadowed oblique.