A playful, casual take on round nib pen lettering was spotted amongst some online scans from an old lettering book. The free-form and stylized shapes of the letters and numbers are reminiscent of old-time show cards, movie titles and signage in vogue around the early 1900s through the 1920s. Fancy Show Card JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A vintage set of die-cut letters and number by Village Toys (circa 1930s or 1940s) featured a playful, bold serif typeface. This is now available digitally as Toy Letters JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

An ad from the 1930s for a Spanish company called Intex Textiles featured some hand lettering in a bold and unique stencil design. This is now available as Textile Stencil JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Dharma Slab is an antiqued slab serif designed inspired by 1800s-style wood type. All glyphs had been designed carefully to be retro-looking of the old time and to fill all with nostalgia. This condensed font family with 42 styles will be the best solution for posters, titles and anywhere you need impact. To complete your work perfectly, Gothic Extras family is ready for free. They include borders, ornaments and frames designed using vintage catalog of Hamilton in 1800s as a model. Incidentally, g, r and y has their alternative glyphs that can be available with OpenType salt feature and tabular figures can be available with tnum feature. Be sure to check out the sans serif style of this Dharma series named Dharma Gothic.

a gothic drop caps typeface

Around 1931, the Los Angeles Times (in partnership with the Richfield Oil Company) installed on its building a moving message board similar to the one at the New York Times in New York City which they dubbed an “electric newspaper”. The style of characters used on this electronic sign were the basis for the namesake font Electric Newspaper JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. A blank space to place between words is available on both the solid bar and broken bar keystrokes.

Taking the concept of a monoline version of Shàngó — as exemplified in Shàngó Gothic — to its extreme, resulted in the latest addition to the popular Shàngó family of typefaces: Shango Sans. This is a minimalist face, still maintaining the elegant classic letterforms of Professor F.H. Ernst Schneidler's original design, but without obvious contrast in the stroke widths, and of course, without serifs. An extensive set of ligatures and alternate letterforms, along with powerful OpenType features, give Shàngó Sans a great deal of versatility. This elegant, modern typeface supports dozens of languages that use the Latin alphabet as well as modern (monotonic) Greek and most languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet. Shàngó Sans is a member of the extended Shàngó family (Classic, Chiseled, Sans, Gothic).

A World War II training film had its opening title card “First Aid” hand lettered in a casual, Art Deco sans serif design. This is now available digitally as Film Title JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

A poster for the 1932 film “Shanghai Express” starring Marlene Dietrich has the films name is a semi-Asian lettering style. This bold poster font is now available as Asian Railway JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

The opening title card for “Grand Central Murder” (1942) is hand lettered in a stylized, condensed serif type style with strong but elegant appeal. This is now available as Mystery Story JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Up until the advent of vinyl plotters, computers and a myriad of other typesetting and printing changes the world has experienced over the past few decades, the art of hand lettering flourished. An early 1900s book on show card writing displayed a nice example of a Grotesk typeface (a popular style of sans serif of the time). This has been redrawn digitally as Simply Grotesk JNL and is available in four varieties - regular, oblique, condensed and condensed oblique.

In the 1960 edition of Samuel Welo’s “Studio Handbook for Artists and Advertisers” is an example of poster lettering with the accompanying blurb “call this Chrysler”. This casual brushstroke design was slightly modified and then reworked into what is now Show Poster JNL and is now available in both regular and oblique versions.

Commodore JNL and Commodore Oblique JNL are based somewhat on the Clarendon family of typefaces that were popular in the 1800s and used on many of the broadsides and notices printed with wood type. The extra-wide design of this font limits the amount of text that a headline can handle effectively, but when applied sparingly it commands attention and sells the message.

Sackers Roman is an engraver, all-capitals family for invitations and stationery. The letters have strong contrast between thin and thick strokes. See also Sackers Gothic, Sackers Square Gothic, Sackers Script, and Sackers Classic Roman.

Sackers Roman is an engraver, all-capitals family for invitations and stationery. The letters have strong contrast between thin and thick strokes. See also Sackers Gothic, Sackers Square Gothic, Sackers Script, and Sackers Classic Roman.

Sackers Roman is an engraver, all-capitals family for invitations and stationery. The letters have strong contrast between thin and thick strokes. See also Sackers Gothic, Sackers Square Gothic, Sackers Script, and Sackers Classic Roman.

Sackers Roman is an engraver, all-capitals family for invitations and stationery. The letters have strong contrast between thin and thick strokes. See also Sackers Gothic, Sackers Square Gothic, Sackers Script, and Sackers Classic Roman.

Inspired by the elegance of Herman Zapf’s designs crossed with the readability of early 20th century Gothic fonts by Morris Fuller Benton, 19-PRA is a sans-serif with a visible stroke contrast and a humanist tone of voice. The large x-height seen in fonts like News Gothic and Palatino increases legibility and condensed proportions give excellent readability making it perfect for newspaper and magazine publishing. A typeface that can serve for both body text and titling the uppercase excels for headlines and renders beautiful brand names when tracked out. It sets well with both a serif or sans serif and has various open type features including: 12 standard ligatures, 3 discretionary ligatures, tabular figures, old stye figures as well as European accents.

Some pleasant Art Nouveau spurred serif hand lettering was found on the cover of a 1902 issue of “The Century Magazine”. This is now the digital typeface Nouveau Heading JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A 1902 publication entitled "Lettering for Schools & Colleges" had an example of an ornate, hand drawn stencil alphabet in the Art Nouveau style. This is now available digitally as Nouveau Stencil Ornate JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

The December, 1935 movie poster for James Cagney in “Public Enemy” has its title hand lettered in a bold, squared, slab serif type style. Now digitally recreated as Lawbreaker JNL, it is available in both regular and oblique versions.

An elegant, yet informal Roman alphabet with Art Nouveau influences was found amidst the pages of the 1922 edition of “The Expert Sign Painter”. It is now available digitally as Sign Expert JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

While viewing a YouTube video of film footage in and around New York in the mid-1930s, one scene showed some people “window shopping” by the storefront office of the French Line, an international steamship service. A screen capture allowed the storefront sign to be recreated as the digital typeface Steamship JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Unnerving JNL is a distorted/distressed version of Adhesive Serif Letters JNL (of which the original design was modeled after some vintage gummed letters used for signage). This new variant evokes a feeling of apprehension, dread or fear and can be applied to any project with a spooky or sinister theme. Unnerving JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

La Bodeguita is a new calligraphic font carefully designed with walnut ink and a Spencerian feather on an oblique penholder. Bodega means "wine cellar", Bodeguita small "wine cellar"_ This font contains 2 styles, La Bodeguita Regular & La bodeguita Slanted + one Swashes and ornament. More than 400 glyphs We recommend to use La Bodeguita for Labels design, notes, cards, wedding cards etc.

New York to London via Europe The hardworking FS Koopman is a crossbred workhorse which draws inspiration from Swiss and Germanic grotesks, American gothics and early British grotesques, but refuses to fit neatly into any of these categories. Its neither one nor the other, but all of the above. Fontsmith designers Andy Lethbridge and Stuart de Rozario decided to take the characteristics they admired from each category and distill them down into one functional family. Neo meets Neue FS Koopman aims to swim against the tide of Helvetica-ish derivatives by bringing some personality and soul to a genre that all too often ends up feeling bland and sterile. FS Koopman subtly embraces the quirkiness and charm often seen in early twentieth century designs but pairs this with the functionality of later pioneers of the genre. It’s a grotesque isn’t it? The term grotesque surfaced around the early 1800s and refers to the early sans serif designs that many initially believed were strange or ‘grotesque’ due to their lack of elegant serifs. Later variations became known as neo-grotesques and this moniker stuck around even after they gained mass popularity. Some American variants became known as gothics. FS Koopman takes cues from all three categories and blends them into one cohesive design.

The packing information stenciled on an antique wooden crate included a slab serif type style with chamfered corners. This design has now been re-drawn as the digital typeface Stencil Chamfer JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

On page 34 of the 1930 Samuel Welo publication “Lettering - Practical and Foreign” is a simple, basic Art Deco monoline design. This hand lettered type style is now digitally available as Basic Monoline JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Hand lettering found in the September, 1936 issue of the French film publication “La Cinématographie Française” is rendered in a lovely Art Nouveau serif type style. This is now available digitally as French Film JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

The 1965 film “Mirage” had its titles and credits hand lettered in a simple, thin sans serif with rounded corners and an overall square design. This is now available digitally as Office Work JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

An image of a vintage metal stencil for the French wine region Côteaux du Tricastin [now Grignan-Les Adhemar] served as the inspiration for Wine Vat Stencil JNL. This condensed sans serif design is available in both regular and oblique versions.