An image of a vintage British lettering stencil set [probably circa 1960s] spotted in an online auction inspired North End Stencil JNL. The original lettering was a hybrid of both stencil and solid letter forms, but for the digital version all of the characters were given the stencil treatment. North End Stencil JNL is named after a district in London, and the type face is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Proudly Present .. Fabitha Script Fabitha Script goes with Modern and Natural Calligraphy, ready to give your design project with Fresh and Fabulous Style. This font have an 177 Standard Glyph + 109 Glyph Alternate in Open Type Standard Format. Suitable for various purpose such as digital lettering, headings, logos, wedding invitation, t-shirt, letterhead, signage, lable, news, posters, badges, branding materials, t-shirt, print, business cards, quotes, logo, poster, and suitable for any graphic design project.

Ornata B is the second of a series of old ornaments that I am trying to save from oblivion. I am not just scanning these, I am completely redesigning the ornaments from scratch, thereby eliminating imperfections. These ornaments have been first designed by the Elzevier printer family from the Netherlands. The designs date back til the 17th century and I think they just had to be saved. Your digitizing type-designing savior, Gert Wiescher

Veritas is a serif text family. It is a narrow-width typeface, with a taller x-height than Times Roman for added legibility, but maintains a similar character count in text. It is typeface designed for publication, newspaper (anywhere where narrow columns are necessary) and identity design. It is exquisitely spaced and kerned, even in European characters. The Digital Type Review states "...Veritas is one of the most important contributions ... from any independent foundry."

The inspiration source for Viper Monogram is the 1934 Book of American Types by American Type Founders. Found in that specimen book, was a sophisticated two-color monogram design called Hollywood Combination Initials, which was available in limited size metal castings. This wonderful monogram style is now digitally recreated, revived, and updated for modern use! Viper Monogram supports one and two letter monograms, but due to its super condensed style works best for three letter monograms. The default typing style for Viper Monogram is an all horizontal all caps setup which can be used for headlines and titling. Type in Capitals for an outline effect, lowercase for a solid effect. By enabling OpenType Contextual Alternates, you can type diagonal top-aligned monograms up to three letters. By typing in all lowercase, and layer a copy of the lowercase with Stylistic Alternates enabled, you can create a two-color effect. Viper Monogram is available in Pro format Opentype fonts only due its unique setup. Download and view the MFC Viper Monogram Guidebook if you would like to learn a little more.

Inspired by digital displays and mass transit.

Isabelle is the closest thing to a metal type revival Jim Rimmer ever did. The original metal face was designed and cut in late 1930s Germany, but its propspects were cut short by the arrival of the war. This was one of Jim's favourite faces, most likely because of the refined art deco elements that reminded him of his youthful enthusiasm about everything press-related, and the face's intricately thought balance between calligraphy and typography. Not to mention one of the most beautiful italics ever made. Jim's early 2000s digitization included mathematical corrections to the original metal cut, as well as some functional improvements for digital use. In 2013, during the remastering of the entire Rimmer collection, Isabelle underwent a considerable rethinking/expansion and was rechristened Isabelle Pro. The new revisions include small caps, ligatures, seven types of figures, automatic fractions, extended Latin language support, stylistic alternates that include lowercase serif angle options in the roman and looped ascenders/descenders in the italic, and plenty of extra OpenType features like caps-to-small-caps substitution, case-sensitive positioning, ordinals, and extended class-based kerning. Now each of the Isabelle Pro fonts includes over 680 glyphs. 20% of this font's revenues will be donated to the Canada Type Scholarship Fund, supporting higher typography education in Canada.

Floralissimo are flowery embellishments that I found in several old publishing books dating back over a hundred years. I thought they might be useful for some of you, so I digitized them. Your digitizing typedesigner, Gert Wiescher

In January of 2006, Jeff Levine fonts debuted with ten releases. Many of those first fonts were based on vintage lettering stencils, which were the "school years" catalyst for Jeff's interest in lettering and type design. Eight years later, his collection of fonts has become a giant catalog of display type ranging from Wood Type revivals to Art Nouveau, Art Deco to stencil, reinterpretations of old favorites, experimental fonts, dingbat fonts and typefaces reflecting a particular decade's styles of cultural popularity. Designs from old lettering books, type catalogs and advertising have also been fodder for many alphabets not previously available in a digital format. Along the way, many unusual lettering sources were also mined for type ideas. Vintage packaging, hand-lettered signage, sign making kits, rubber stamp type, water applied decals and at times just a singular letter example inspired many of the releases within this collection. It was a source of pride for Jeff Levine Fonts to reach 500 releases and a determined goal to grow the type library as far as possible. With this in mind, February 2014 brings forth many new releases. This one in particular, Ornery Polecat JNL, is the 800th typeface release from Jeff.

digitization of a classic art nouveau era font

a digitization of a classic renaissance fancy font

Digitally engineered by Steve Jackaman. Ludlow, circa 1939.

Geometric retro-digital font. Extented latin character set.

A digitization revival of a classic woodtype font

digitization of a vintage lettering from Delamotte's book

a digitization from a french vintage classic typeface

digitization of a classic font from America heritage

Digibeck represents a new style of digital font.

Linotype Salamander is a part of the Take Type Library, selected from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. Designed by German artist Michael Struller, the font seems to be composed of strokes and curves jointed together to form characters. Yet Salamander also looks like a handwriting font, in part because of its slight lean to the right. The font contains four basic weights, from regular to demibold, and two particularly heavy double-weights. Linotype Salamander is a light and lively font, particularly good for short texts of point size 10 and up or, in its heavier weights, for headlines and displays.

The cover of a 1950s-era catalog for the Freedman Novelty Company (of San Francisco California) had the word "Novelty" hand-lettered in an unusually angular type style against various geometric shapes somewhat resembling balloons. While the lettering was quirky enough to warrant re-drawing as a digital font, the shapes would have presented a visual nightmare in design and spacing, so simple black rectangles were substituted and the letters appear in white. Since novelty lettering of this type would never become "standard" in use, its function became the font's name, Limited Appeal JNL. There is just a simple A-Z and 1-0 character set along with basic punctuation.

Linotype CoolWool is part of the Take Type Library, featuring winners of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contest. This font was designed by A. Leonardi and P. Wollein, who took their inspiration from clothing labels and care instructions. CoolWool is designed to look like it was stitched, a style of typeface which goes back to the hand embroidery of the time of Biedermeier. CoolWool, however, is a distinctly modern font with a technical feel. The font is not suited for longer texts, but CoolWool is good for shorter texts and headlines, especially because of the possibilities allowed by its three different styles, regular, stone washed (bold) and Cotton Club (outline).

Linotype Pisa is part of the Take Type Library, selected from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. It was designed by Swedish artist Lutz Baar and is a modern text font based on the humanistic Old Face style. The dynamic lines and harmonious proportions make Linotype Pisa a pleasant and legible font. Distinguishing characteristics are the elongated cross strokes of the capital A, B, E, F and P and the slanted cross stroke of the lower case e, typical of Venecian Old Face characters of the 15th century. Linotype Pisa is well-suited to longer texts and headlines.

Linotype Go Tekk is a part of the Take Type Library, selected from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contest. The font was designed by the German artist Critzler and is available in three weights, thin, medium and black. Go Tekk is a cool, constructed with unusual cross strokes, appearing in almost every character at exactly the same height. The capital letters do not end on the baseline, rather drop even farther down than the descenders of the lower case letters, making it necessary to allow for generous line spacing. Linotype Go Tekk is a relatively static font designed exclusively for headlines and displays.

Originally created with cutting in red litho film, as a headlining typeface for Vinyl music magazine. Its geometric structure was very applicable for early type design experiments on the computer. ...in the early 1980s, he (Max Kisman) became the designer of a small, independent music magazine Vinyl. This Amsterdam-based publication was set up very much as a response to the innovative British magazine, The Face. Responding to Neville Brody's radical designs for that magazine, Kisman began to experiment by creating new headline typefaces for each issue... (Emily King. New Faces: type design in the first decade of device-independent digital typesetting. 1987-1997.

Linotype Mateo is part of the Take Type Library, which features the winners of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contest from 1994 to 1997. Jürgen Ellenberger included three styles in his font, roman, bold and outline. The characters of Mateo consist exclusively of lines, giving the font an extremely angular look. However, Mateo retains a certain handwritten style somewhat reminiscent of the graffiti left on wooden grade school desks by previous classes. The bold and outline styles have emphasized stroke contrasts but keep the angular, consciously irregular look. The roman style is best for smaller texts and the bold and outlines styles for headlines.

Linotype Minos is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. This fun font was designed by Swiss artist Christian Goetz, who named it after King Minos of Crete of the Bronze Age. Typical of scripts of this time were the ornamental borders around the characters, found on palaces of Knossos, Phaistos and Mallia. These borders surround every character of Linotype Minos, making it exclusively for headlines in larger point sizes. Single characters can also be used as initials mixed with other alphabets, especially with constructed sans serif and modern serif fonts.

Linotype Finerliner is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contest. The American artist Gary Munch, from whom we also have Linotype Ergo and Ergo Sketch, designed Linotype Finerliner as a handwriting font with calligraphic influences. The small, regularly formed lower case letters contrast nicely with the generous, sweeping capitals. The font is available in a light and medium weight and displays no stroke contrast. The lighter weight, micro, is best used for shorter texts in point sizes 18 or larger and the medium weight, macro, is mainly intended for headlines in larger point sizes.

Linotype Schachtelhalm is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from the entries of the Linotype-sponsored International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. The inspiration of German designer Ilka Kwiatkowski is not hard to figure out and the font carries the German name of the plant which was its model. The alphabet consists exclusively of capital letters with clear geometric basic forms. The font is meant for headlines in point sizes of 18 and larger. The details which make Linotype Schachtelhalm unique and true to its inspiration are however best seen in large point sizes, such as on posters, and Schachtelhalm is best combined with neutral fonts.

Archimedes is a wood type design sometimes known as Mansard. This particular version was brought back to life as a wood type font by Virgin Wood Type. The variation with screw heads in the design was first seen in 1879 by the William H. Page Co. This new digital version is a simultaneous release with Virgin Wood Type and features a variety of styles including the standard screw head option—plus a Phillips head, Hex/Allen Wrench head, and even the vexing Apple® pentalobe tamper reistant star screw. The result is a sturdy and industrial font that has a certain “joie de vivre” and “bling” attitude. Not for every designer, but you know this is for YOU! As a bonus, the screwheads themselves are accessible via a glyph palette, so you can put the screws to Comic Sans, or any other font, if you so desire.

SchmalfetteCP is the result of another collaboration between designers Jason Walcott and Rob King. King suggested that Walcott revive this wonderful and somewhat forgotten sans serif typeface from the mid 1950s. Originally designed by Walter Haettenschweiler in 1954, Schmalfette Grotesk was used for many years in the German magazine "Twen". The typeface was notoriously hard to acquire at the time and graphic designers in the USA often resorted to cutting letters from the Twen magazines and reusing them in their own designs. Later, when digital type came along several typefaces very similar were created that claimed to be digital revivals of Schmalfette Grotesk. However, they are actually only loosely based on the original. The proportions are different and in some cases a lower case was added. The original font was all caps. At Rob King's suggestion, Jason Walcott has strived to recreate the most faithful digital revival possible of the original Schmalfette Grotesk with the new version of SchmalfetteCP. In some cases small changes were made to accommodate today's digital needs (e.g. web fonts), but anyone who has ever searched for this typeface now has a version available that most closely resembles Haettenschweiler's original work. Schmalfette CP comes in OpenType format in both .ttf and .otf files and offers support for all Latin based and Eastern European languages.

Martin Wilke’s underrated yet influential deco classic from 1932 has both feet firmly planted in the high traditions of Western European calligraphy while carefully and subtly introducing some traits from the sweeping geometric/minimalist vision of the time. In a way, it was one of the representatives of the European anti-type typefaces of that era, when print media was searching for the elusive aesthetic balance between humanism and geometry. This typeface enjoyed some popularity in Germany for a few years, and went on to influence further type designs in Holland and Italy. After the second World War, the black hole that swallowed a big chunk of Europe’s print culture, new influences and technologies overtook the scene, and selective historical emphasis ensued, highlighting some of the era’s designs and overlooking others. Further selective picking in the digital era all but buried Wilke’s body of work - unfairly so, because he was just as important in German type history as Bernhard, Post, Schneidler, Tiemann and Trump. The original metal Wilke Kursiv came in one weight. This digital version goes a long way in expanding on that original offering. Now Wilke’s masterpiece comes in three weights, and with a full Pro treatment including swash caps, small capitals, five types of figures, automatic fractions, and plenty of other OpenType niceties. Each of the Wilke Kursiv Pro fonts comes with over 700 characters, and contains support for most Latin-based languages. Also available are three non-Pro fonts in each weight.

It is still a mystery to us why Martin Wilke's 1968 Konzept design was ignored by the digital age. It certainly has the elements of attractive yet realistic handwriting, as well as a few very distinctive letters that make it very unique in its class. So here it comes digitally under another feline name from Canada Type. We named it Cougar because the top of the C gives off just that impression. Ditto the G's casual descender, and the gorgeous a and g. With casual letters like these, a handwriting font cannot get any more realistic. Cougar is ideal for handwritten notes, both long letters and friendly short sentences. It's also great for use in scrawl design, titling, or any environment where friendly and casual appearance is of importance.

The Journal Sans typeface was developed in the Type Design Department of SPA of Printing Machinery in Moscow in 1940–1956 by the group of designers under Anatoly Schukin. It was based on Erbar Grotesk by Jacob Erbar and Metro Sans by William A. Dwiggins, the geometric sans-serifs of the 1920s with the pronounced industrial spirit. Journal Sans, Rublenaya (Sans-Serif), and Textbook typefaces were the main Soviet sans-serifs. So no wonder that it was digitized quite early, in the first half of 1990s. Until recently, Journal Sans consisted of three faces and retained all the problems of early digitization, such as inaccurate curves or side-bearings copied straight from metal-type version. The years of 2013 and 2014 made «irregular» geometric sans-serifs trendy, and that fact affected Journal Sans. In the old version curves were corrected and the character set was expanded by Olexa Volochay. In the new release, besides minor improvements, a substantial work has been carried out to make the old typeface work better in digital typography and contemporary design practice. Maria Selezeneva significantly worked over the design of some glyphs, expanded the character set, added some alternatives, completely changed the side-bearings and kerning. Also, the Journal Sans New has several new faces, such as true italic (the older font had slanted version for the italic), an Inline face based on the Bold, and the Display face with proportions close to the original Erbar Grotesk. The new version of Journal Sans, while keeping all peculiarities and the industrial spirit of 1920s-1950s, is indeed fully adapted to the modern digital reality. It can be useful either for bringing historical spirit into design or for modern and trendy typography, both in print and on screen. Designed by Maria Selezeneva with the participation of Alexandra Korolkova. Released by ParaType in 2014.

Aorta was designed for independent subcultural zine. It have stencil in place of lower-case and digit stencil in place of old style digit. Aorta good for headlines, posters, editorial design... Aorta have condensed proportion and good in solid matter.

Designed by Les Usherwood. Digitally engineered by Steve Jackaman.

Designed by Les Usherwood. Digitally engineered by Steve Jackaman.

Designed by Les Usherwood. Digitally engineered by Steve Jackaman.

Elias is a digital version of my own handwriting.

a digitization of Remington Elite model typewriter machine alphabet