An example of an antique sans serif wood type displayed in Rob Roy Kelly’s “American Wood Type” was the working model for Sandalwood JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A former lettering artist at Hallmark Cards, Rob Leuschke now has his own thriving design businesses, Alphabytes and the new TypeSETit. Growing up in St Charles, Missouri, where he still lives, Rob showed great artistic promise at an early age. He earned a BFA in graphic design at the University of Missouri at Columbia. After graduation, his stint at Hallmark Cards gave him the opportunity to learn from and work with some of the best lettering artists in the industry. Rob struck out on his own in 1987 and now boasts a long list of clients from all over the world. Rob has created over 250 custom typefaces, and his work has been exhibited in New York. Ambiance BT is Rob’s first typeface published by Bitstream, with more to follow.

Antique X Condensed is a condensed slab serif font found with the pages of a Rob Roy Kelly book of wood type designs. It was introduced around 1840 by Wells and Webb, and the example served as the model for General Merchandise JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Woodtype wizard Rob Roy Kelly identified the inspiration for this typeface in his 100 Wood Type Alphabets simply as "No. 154". Funky, chunky, round and robust, it’s clearly a barrel of fun. Named after a small town in Central Texas, which just happens to be the home of Dell Computer. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

In his book of 100 Wood Type Alphabets, Rob Roy Kelly called this face "Teutonic". This version adds lowercase letters, missing in the original, plus a few woodcut dingbats in the brackets, bar, section and florin positions. Named for a charming town in the Texas Hill Country, founded by German settlers in the mid-1850s. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Xylotype guru Rob Roy Kelly identified this specimen from his personal collection as "Phanitalian". This addition to the Whiz-Bang Woodtype series takes its name from a small Texas town in the middle of nowhere which has risen to international prominence—at least for folks interested in such things—as the site of the World Championship Chili Cook-off. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

Selma is a family of Sans Serif fonts with 492 Glyphs, 04 weight (Light, regular, medium and bold), with long stems, inspired by bar codes. Extremely condensed vertical emphasis, its bars positioned at the ends of the rods give a strong dose of personality and elegance to the design, has a height of x accented, giving strength and power of attraction for short texts and large sizes.

P22 Tuscan Expanded is a digitization of the mid-19th Century Woodtype font "Antique Tuscan Expanded - Wells & Webb 1854". Specimens of this font are rarely, if ever, seen with a lower case. It is noted in the book American Wood Type 1828-1900 by Rob Roy Kelly that the lower case is "missing". This version was digitized from a recently discovered full set including all lower case plus ff ligatures. One unique feature of this design is the heart shape formed in the V, X & Y.

My affection for Slab Serifs began in the early 1960s in Kansas City with Rob Roy Kelly and his fabulous collection of wood type. In the 1970s tried to re-create a Nebiolo Egiziano for Roger Black. Again for Roger, in the 1980s I designed a Slab Serif logo for Newsweek Magazine. Finally, in 2003, designed the Sutro Family. There were things I didn't like about it, so when I did Version 2 for Open Type, I changed it around a little, making it a much nicer Sutro.

Poplar is an Adobe Originals typeface designed by Barbara Lind in 1990 for the Adobe Wood Type series. Poplar, a Gothic condensed, was designed from photographs taken by Rob Roy Kelly of the one surviving copy of an 1830 William Leavenworth type specimen book. Leavenworth possessed unusual artistic abilities, and his treatment of the letterform counters as narrow slits made it the only wood type of its kind displayed during the nineteenth century. Poplar is an excellent display face, its simplicity making it useful for a broad range of work.

Willow is an Adobe Originals typeface designed in 1990 by Joy Redick for the Adobe Wood Type series. Willow is a condensed typeface modeled on nineteenth-century wood types known as Clarendons (wood type Clarendons do not resemble the English metal types of that name). Clarendon condensed faces were originally so well-designed that words or a line of display type have an even color that is remarkable for wood types. Taken from proofs of type in the Rob Roy Kelly Collection housed at the University of Texas at Austin, Willow can be used for display work such packaging, advertising, and posters.

Robeaugo is pronounced as “ro-bo-go”. The name is originated out of the 3 words: robo, beau (French) and go. It’s a mix of Art Deco with round shapes and is best used in headings and logos.

Stepside is a slick retro display face with plenty of horsepower. Stepside’s heavy-duty type chassis of sturdy uprights and bold strokes was modified with sweet retro details like graceful curves and tapered fins. Inspired by street rods, custom vans and power wagons, Stepside modestly hides its muscle like a true sleeper. Take Stepside for a spin on logos, posters and t-shirts for a more classic look. Need more speed? Step on the gas with Stepside Italic — perfect for type in need of emphasis.

Pull up your Jackboots and check out this Teutonic title font designed by Richard Starkings for Rob Liefeld's controversial relaunch of Marvel's CAPTAIN AMERICA.

Birdcage was designed from a very short lettering sample in Rob Roy Kelly's American Wood Type book, from the image I created a complete font plus a regular version with lowercase. In the past banner style fonts would limit you to a monospaced look, so how do you kern a banner font? Well, with today's OpenType font format the solution is simple, draw the kerning pairs together as one character glyph and place them inside the font then use auto substitution to access those characters when needed. Birdcage (OpenType version) includes 249 auto ligature kerning pairs, to use this feature you will need an application that takes advantage of OpenType features such as Adobe CS products.

These six faces are interpreted from examples shown in Rob Roy Kelly's "American Wood Types" They are not merely scanned copies, but have been redrawn from scratch with various optical adjustments. Kelly points out that the true glory of the American Wood Types are the negative spaces, which are, in their dynamic active forms, the antithesis of the anemic flimsy letters produced by type foundries in the 19th century. The Alphabets Wood Types are designed with digital manipulation in mind. Stretch, curve and distort at will! These designs were released prior to similar revivals from Adobe. Each font has two full alphabets (one full height, one smaller) and numerals. However, certain points and accents will not be found.

Lettering whiz Carl Holmes called this creation "Pelt Emphasis Script", and its funky, chunky charm will indeed lend emphasis to any headline it graces. The Postscript and Truetype versions contain a complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252); in addition, the Opentype version supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages as well.