Churchward Alien is the latest OpenType font family released by BluHead Studio, LLC. from the exciting and unique typeface library of Joseph Churchward. The quirky chopped-top motif gives this four weight family a unique presence suitable for display work, but the lighter weights work equally well for short text runs.

The cover of the 1907 sheet music for "I'd Rather Twostep Than Waltz, Bill" was hand lettered in an Art Nouveau sans serif alphabet. During the hippie counter-culture movement of the 1960s, rock posters, album covers and other printed ephemera of the time embraced the styles of lettering and art made popular during the early 1900s. It seemed only fitting to name this type design Nouveau Hippie JNL as an homage to both eras. The font is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Pantano is a handmade grunge typeface inspired by the rustic style of Amazonia. This update adds more diacritics, alternate characters and more ligatures give a sensual and naturalistic touch to the written word. Designed by Luciano Vergara and LCF. Languages include: Basic Latin, Western European, Euro, Catalan, Baltic, Turkish, Central European, Romania, Pan African Latin.

This script font was inspired by the “Ronde” French script. It was in use from 1700s to 1900s (until 1960s in special circumstances) for registers, legal documents and texts, certificates, labels and other documents that must be particularly legible. Today in France, it is still being used for menus, advertising, and labels. The present version is a late 19th Century pattern. This font supports very strong enlargements as well as small sizes. When printed, it remains perfectly legible and elegant from 9/11 pts even if using an ordinary inkjet printer.

Chamferwood JNL is another interpretation of the block lettering style most popular during the late 1800s and the early 1900s. The design was modeled from examples from a set of wood type.

PL Torino Outline was designed by Ed Benguiat in 1960 after Alessandro ButtiÆs 1908 typeface, Torino.

Samuel Welo was a sign painter who had published in the 1920s and again in 1960 his “Studio Handbook – Letter and Design for Artists and Advertisers”, prolifically hand lettering all of the type style examples within the pages of the publication. In 1930 Welo also published “Lettering - Practical and Foreign”. From this book comes a thick-and-thin hand lettered Art Deco alphabet – now available digitally as Sightseeing Tour JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Comixed RP Bold and Comixed RP Bold Outline are two new fonts designed by British designer Roy Preston and released by BluHead Studio, LLC. Comixed is a bold, condensed cap-only typeface, with a lively, animated charm. The Outline version turns up the fun factor by adding a drop shadow. Used alone or together, both are great for snappy, eye-catching headlines!

This set of initial letters was inspired from French renaissance decorated letters. It is a typical pattern, one among dozen quite similar, but this one was in use in Paris, unchanged, for centuries, and was still in use in the beginning of 1900s. This explains the difference between I and J, U and V. These characters were engraved years after the original set. Our font was inspired from a late 1800s publication. It can be used as well with Humane fonts (like our 1543 Humane Janson or 1592 GLC Garamond) as with modern fonts like our 1820 Modern or 1906 French News.

Ebbets JNL is a variant of Jeff Levine's Base Runner JNL, with more of a 1930s-1940s feel.

Sheet music for the 1910 composition "Good-By Betty Brown" has its title hand lettered in a thick and thin, condensed sans serif design reminiscent of lettering found in later comic strips and books of the 1930s and 1940s. Transcending both the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles, Funny Papers JNL gets its name from the slang reference Americans of the early 20th Century gave the Sunday comics pages in their local newspapers, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Samuel Welo was a sign painter who had published in the 1920s and again in 1960 editions of his “Studio Handbook – Letter and Design for Artists and Advertisers”. In-between, in 1930 Welo also published “Lettering - Practical and Foreign”. Within the pages is an Art Deco outline slab serif design using multiple thin lines to create an “incised” or “engraved” look within the characters. This intriguing type style is now available as Guest Invitation JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

The model for Bensonhurst JNL was a 1930s-era hand-lettered WPA (Works Project Administration) poster for the play "Hell Bent For Heaven". Although the basic style is a classic Art Deco "thick and thin" format, the design (in certain characters) starts to take on the feel of a 1970s revival style. With this in mind, Bensonhurst JNL is a bit of a hybrid between the 1930s and the 1970s.

Although the early 1900s through the 1920s seemed to be the "Golden Age" of ridiculously long novelty song titles, it appears that even the decade of the 1940s had its fair share as well. Song Merchant JNL was modeled from the hand lettered [but exhausting] title of the sheet music for "Princess Poo-Poo-Ly Has Plenty Pa-Pa-Ya (and she Loves to Give it Away)". Despite the obvious double-entendre inferences of the title, the square block letters with rounded corners make for a useful headline font (even if the source material it was drawn from is quite forgettable). Available in regular and oblique versions.

Love songs are the perennials of music, outlasting all other popular fads and styles that come and go. The 1920s through the 1940s is considered by some to be the Golden Age of the American love song. Thousands upon thousands of copies of popular sheet music sold, and the cover lettering and art on many titles were from some of the finest illustrators of their time. Love Song JNL recreates the Art Deco-flavored design found on one such piece of sheet music from the 1930s.

Tarocco is a typical book face with good readability and rather tall x-height. The origin for this typeface is found in Nordisk Antikva. A typeface especially constructed with attention for the Swedish language. Waldemar Zachrisson was determined to realize his ideas and in 1906 he began to cooperate with the foundry Genzsch & Heyse, based in Hamburg. Some influences of Jugendt can be found and the typeface were released in 1910. It became rather popular until around 1930. The MRF version includes 7 weights all together.

Inspired by the typefaces used for company insignia on aircraft in the 1930's and 1940's, Streamliner is light, friendly and open.

Energy Grotesk is a modern grotesque family. It is an OpenType Variable font with weight axis going from 100 to 900. Energy Grotesk is extrovert, bold and full of energy. Most wide, grotesque fonts are uppercase only, but Energy embraces upper and lowercase. Available in 9 weights Over 1000 glyphs supporting extended Latin Ideal for display texts: Titles, Logos and Headlines etc. Supports OpenTypes features like Ligatures and Stylistic Alternates Tabular Numerals included

Cardboard Cutouts JNL is a blocky sans serif font re-drawn from some old "kiddie" stencils from the 1950s or 1960s acquired by Jeff Levine.

The range of subtle differences in the many different sized lettering stencils of the 1940s and 1950s allows for a wonderful library of authentic-looking stencil fonts. Storage JNL is another Roman (serif) type design by Jeff Levine and modeled from a 1950s stencil set.

Modeled from an example in the book “Lettering” by Harry B. Wright (1950), the poster alphabet shown was reminiscent of the kind of style used in the early 1900s by sign painters and show card artists. Vintage Poster JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A 1940s sheet music edition of an early 1900s song entitled "You Taught Me How to Love You, Now Teach Me to Forget" was set in a popular metal type slab serif face. It is presented digitally as Elite Resort JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

F.W. Woolworth was once one of the giants of the variety store chains, along with the likes of Kress, S.S. Kresge, McCrory’s, Neisner Brothers, Ben Franklin and others. In 1960, the company brought out a new corporate logo with a type design harking back to the Art Deco style of the 1930s and 1940s. A photo of one of their old store fronts (despite having only eight letters to work with) inspired the digital interpretation of the signage as Bargain Shopping JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Fette Deutsche Schrift also known as Koch-Fraktur or Kochschrift was created by Rudolf Koch for Klingspor foundry between 1908 and 1910. The basis of this font is a publication in the magazine “Das Plakat” of September 1921. The font contains swash capitals to use as dropcaps, contextual alternates, glyphs for line endings, ligatures, discretional ligatures for use in German, ornaments and other OpenType features. It supports all the European languages using Latin alphabets (including slashed S and slashed long s used in Latvian old orthography till 1930s).

A mid-1950s hand lettered ad for Stenso Lettering Guides provided the inspiration for Stencil Company JNL, now available in both regular and oblique versions. The Stenso Lettering Company of Baltimore, Maryland pioneered easy-to-use and inexpensive lettering devices with guide holes for accurate spacing. Originally designed by a school teacher (Ruth Libauer Hormats) around 1940, the company was family run until it was sold in 1962 to Ottenheimer Publishers. They in turn sold the line to the Dennison Manufacturing Company, and it was discontinued in the 1980s after Dennison merged with Avery.

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.

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.

The French publication “La Lettre Dans le Decor et La Publicite Modernes” (“The Letter in the Modern Décor and Advertising”) was a 24-page booklet showcasing the then-current trends of the time (circa late 1930s-early 1940s). On one page was found a squared, extra bold sans serif alphabet set with strong Art Nouveau influences, yet it was ahead of its time by taking on the look and feel of 1980s techno typography. They say “everything old is new again”, and Nouveau Techno JNL is now available digitally in both regular and oblique versions.

Nouveau Era JNL was adapted from the title of a hand-lettered advertisement found on the back of a 1920s-1930s piece of vintage sheet music.

A new take on the perennial Art Deco favorite, Broadway, interpreted by 1930s lettering artist Harold Holland Day, and named after a 1960s R&B song.

Churchward Tua and Churchward Tua Italic are two more OpenType font releases by Bluhead Studio from the exciting and unique library of Joseph Churchward type designs. The Tua fonts sport an Old West, cattle drive sort of look. One can imagine Tua being used on the swinging front doors of the local saloon or jailhouse. These fonts are perfect for headlines, posters or wherever you want to express your inner cowboy. Giddy-up!

A 1930s casual Art Deco type style with as much influence in 1970s graphic design as in its day was found within the pages of the 1930s French publication L'Art du Tracé Rationnel de la Lettre. Discotheque JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A new font inspired by vintage hand-painted paper signs. The Doorbuster Collection is based on retro hand-painted paper signs primarily seen in grocery stores from the 1920s through the 1970s. We meticulously hand-drew each font, modeling the spacing and uneven baseline found in vintage sign painting. The purposely organic ascenders and descenders, along with a huge set of ligatures/contextual alternates to avoid the same letters repeating when paired, give it a real hand-lettered look. Doorbuster Plug is perfect for both vintage-inspired and contemporary marketing, branding, and packaging designs. It's a classic workhorse font from the 1950s thru 1970s. Check out a few of the samples included in the thumbnails to see what can be done with it.

Wood Clarendon JNL is based on Hamilton Clarendon Condensed (circa 1899) and is available in both regular and oblique versions. The design of this typeface retains many of the charming (but slight) design irregularities often found within pantograph-cut wood type from the 1800s through the early 1900s.

Reverberation JNL and its slanted counterpart are a throwback to the 1970s and 1980s when fonts featuring horizontal white lines of varying widths implied movement or activity.