Good ideas never will die. Based on the concepts of former Leipzig student Volker Küster in the mid-1960s, I redrew and digitized the basics and extended them into a complete multilingual caps-only poster font which I named “Brocken”. Its letter-forms strongly remind me of the mighty rocks covering the highest peak, Brocken, in Northern Germany.

“News Gothic” has been a reliable workhorse of a font since it was created by Morris Fuller Benton and first offered for sale in 1908 by American Type Founders. A clean, legible design used for text copy, it can also double as a light headline face. This reinterpretation (named Columnist JNL) is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Plakat is based on lettering by 1920s advertising calligrapher Samuel Welo. It is a complete upper and lower case set with a number of alternate characters, all with a rough, decorative look accented by curls and hooks. If you like the look of our popular Scurlock font, Plakat has a similar aesthetic, though it is even bolder.

Squared letters with rounded corners – Deco stylized letter forms – some characters with ‘hook’ semi-serifs – such is the mixed styles that comprise the hand lettered title “United We Stand” on a 1940s-era piece of sheet music. This unusual conglomeration of character shapes inspired the aptly named Hybrid Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

In the MGM musical "Broadway Melody of 1940", a new stage production has its gala opening at the fictitious Lafayette Theater on the Great White Way. The front of the theater is resplendent with classic neon signage, and the theater's name is in an interesting Art Deco design. Musical Number JNL recreates this lettering in digital form.

Thannhaeuser’s mid-1930s display blacklettr font as a fresh and extended redesign called Staufer Gotisch. This font contains a bunch of useful ligatures, and it is recommended to activate both Standard and Discretionary Ligatures. To reach the numero sign, type the combination N-o-period und activate the OT feature Ordinals. The # key is occupied by the round s.

Mechanized JNL is a solid interpretation of Jeff Levine's stencil font Trencher JNL. Both fonts were based on a photo of hand-cut stencils found on a 1940's trenching machine in the collection of the Marine Corps Mechanized Museum at Camp Pendleton, California. Thanks to restoration volunteer Brian Platzer for providing the images of those stencils.

Satisfaction Pro is the vastly expanded and improved version of the popular font Satisfaction, inspired by cigarette ads from the 1930s. This new OpenType version has over 600 glyphs, including a full set of small caps, lining and oldstyle numbers, and numerous discretionary ligatures and contextual alternates to help create the look and feel of real handwriting.

Hofstad is a font which was modeled on a poster designed by Dutch graphic artist Jan Lavies (1902 - 2005). Lavies became famous for the posters he designed for the Holland America Line of cruise ships. Hofstad font was named after the theatre group "Vereenigd Rotterdamsch - Hofstad Tooneel" for which Jan Lavies designed a poster. Hofstad comes with all diacritics.

Fire the retro rockets! Here's a decidedly different take on techno type, patterned after Robert Williamson's Program 32 from the 1970s. Despite its machine-readable pretensions, it renders remarkably warm headlines. Both versions of this font include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, along with localization for Lithuanian, Moldovan, Romanian and Turkish.

Blop11 is a geometric sans-serif type family, consisting of 3 weights. Blop11 Bold is inspired by 1800s-style wood, poster typeface. Owing to its rounded terminals, Blop preserves natural organic quality of wood typeface. The Regular and Light versions are contemporary original projects. Blop11 is well-suited to headlines and short text. See also Blop77

Here's another gem from Samuel Welo's perennial classic, The Studio Handbook, originally called Goddard Classic. Welo's inimitable penwork manages to be both worldly and whimsical, and remains as fresh today as when it was first introduced in the 1920s. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets.

Figural is the work of Michael Gills, developed under the direction of Colin Brignall. It is based on an original 1940 design of Czechoslovakian designer Oldrich Menhart. All original characteristics were carefully retained in this distinguished typeface family. Figural is highly legible, making it perfect for both short pieces in advertising text or larger applications in magazines or books.

Visual Arts JNL is a classic Art Deco typeface based on the hand lettering found on a 1930s-era WPA (Works Progress Administration) poster for Women Artists. The exhibit took place in the Federal Art Gallery in Boston, and was part of the arts project underwritten by the WPA to keep many creative people working during the Depression years.

Based on the all caps decorative face Fournier le Jeune of 1768 by Pierre Simon Fournier for the Peignot Foundry. This version uses more elaborate "Vouge Initials" caps which were offered by ATF in 1920s. Because of the decorative nature of this design, a full character set is not included, but accented characters and basic punctuation are included.

AdieuTwo is a radical revision of Adieu which was a revision of my original font, Chivalry, that was traced from Chevalier back in the mid-1990s. Its roots are obvious, but this one has small caps, small cap figures, oldstyle figures, ligatures, and more. This is a thoroughly up-to-date font ready to be used for stylish heads.

If it's at all possible to "Deco-ize" an Art Deco font even more, it's been done with Roney JNL. Named for one of the classic hotels built during the heyday of Miami Beach, this font is a stylized version of Jeff Levine's Metalet Modern; a design derived from an actual 1940s home movie titling set.

Parfum de Paris JNL is an all lower case Art Deco-inspired design that features counterless letters in a thick-and-thin style reminiscent of 1930s text styles. Casual and at the same time elegant, this font is perfect for perfume labels, menu headings and other 'stylish' titling evoking the look and feel of the 'Streamline Era'.

Inspired by handlettering used on many WPA posters of the 1930s, this monocase display font has stylish lines and graceful curves that will add period charm to any project they grace. Available and normal and bold weights. The Opentype versions of these fonts support Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages, as well as Unicode 1252 (Latin) languages.

Braggadocio is a very black typeface. Braggadocio is a strange hybrid with characteristics of both sans serif and modern faces; and it belongs very much to its time. Like high society in the 1920's, it should not be taken too seriously. Use the Braggadocio font for display lines in advertising, magazines and light hearted communications.

Free-flowing pen lettering of the Art Nouveau period took letter forms into interesting curves and angles. The style was embraced and revived by the 1960s counter-culture in its rock concert posters and record album covers. However, the source for Casual Nouveau JNL is a 1911 piece of sheet music entitled "Back to the Carolina You Love".

An early-1960s Canadian magazine ad for a brand of birth control pills featured the least likely spokesperson – Annette Funicello (“starring in “Beach Blanket Bingo” and “How to Stuff A Wild Bikini”). The text was hand lettered in an Art Deco-inspired sans serif type design. Tarpon Spring JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The cover of the sheet music for the 1910 song “We’ve kept the Golden Rule” features a hand lettered and slightly spurred Art Nouveau type style. As an older couple was pictured below the song’s title, this inspired the name Golden Years JNL for the digital font, which is available in both regular and oblique version.

Gerry Powell, typographer, industrial designer, and director of typographic design for American Type Founders, designed Onyx font for ATF in 1937. A very popular advertising type in the 1940s, Onyx resembles an extremely condensed, bold member of the Bodoni family. Onyx is a good display font, with proportions that make it readable even when space is at a premium.

In the days when sheet music was as popular as phonograph records for home entertainment, a song album was a folio of collected works. The hand-lettering on the 1940s-era cover for "The Sigmund Romberg Song Album, Book II" served as the model for Song Album JNL. Romberg was a noted composer of Broadway show tunes.

The same monograms found on a 1930s-era business card that inspired Golden Beach JNL are reproduced as Art Deco Monograms JNL. Left-side monograms are on the upper case A-Z, while the lower case a-z are the right side monograms. A vertical bar is on the period key for a centerpiece between the two initials.

Artegra Slab is the latest addition to the Artegra superfamily. It contains 54 fonts with over 1000 glyphs per font in condensed, normal and extended widths. With Cyrillic and Greek sets it supports more than a hundred languages. It’s based on the perfectionist geometric shapes of Artegra Sans, which makes it beautiful to look at and easy to read.

Font Lupo is the younger brother of Kapra. However, unlike Kapra it is characterized by the sharpness of the finish. It is inspired by a You And Me Monthly published by National Magazines Publisher RSW „Prasa” that appeared from Mai 1960 till December 1973 in Poland. Font Lupo is designed in one version – lower and uppercase characters.

This curious little gem is patterned after a typeface named "Bloomsbury", released by P. M. Shanks & Sons, Ltd. of London in the 1920s. Its gentle curves and somewhat quirky construction combine to create a warm and friendly, if slightly offbeat, antique charm. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

This charming, disarming, roly-poly typeface is based on handlettering discovered on a Sabena Airlines travel brochure of the 1930s. Include it in your next project, and a good time will be had by all. Both versions of this font contain complete Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

Beaumont is a modern take on classic 1920's type, playing with stroke contrast and art deco forms. The result is a 10 font family, providing options for setting readable body copy or high impact display headings. With full multilingual character support, stylistic alternates and a range of open type features, Beaumont is perfect for a variety of situations.

The Greek-influenced hand lettering on a 1930s WPA (Works Progress Administration) poster for the Federal Theater presentation of "Trojan Incident" inspired Euripedes JNL. The play was based on Homer and Euripedes, and was presented at the off-Broadway St. James Theatre (which opened in 1927 at 246 W. 44th Street on the site of the original Sardi's restaurant).

Otto Weisert was a German type founder who ran his own foundry in Stuttgart during the early years of the 20th Century. In 1902, he created Kalligraphia, a cursive Art Nouveau display script face. Kalligraphia has a unique stroke contrast model; the tops and bottoms of its letterforms are thicker than the verticals on its sides.

Axelby JNL was modeled from a set of die-cut, self-adhesive cardboard letters from the 1960s. The design is reminiscent of some early wood type in the way it has letters of varying widths that do not conform to any set standard. The font is perfect for plain, easy-to-read and attention-getting headlines.

This elegant titling face is based on an American Type Founders release from the 1920s named Sterling. Hairline serifs and graceful curves give this typeface a certain grace and charm that will brighten up any project. All versions of this font include the Unicode 1250 Central European character set in addition to the standard Unicode 1252 Latin set.

The 1920s film production company Tiffany-Stahl often used a hand lettered Art Nouveau novelty type design with thick horizontal lines in their various film release ads. One such ad was in the August 11, 1929 of “The Film Daily”. This served as the model for Nouveau Event JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Font Cervo is the younger sister of Kapra. It is characterized by eight different varieties – lower and uppercase characters and in contrast to Kapra is “slimmed” version (from Medium to Thin). It is inspired by a You And Me Monthly published by National Magazines Publisher RSW „Prasa” that appeared from May 1960 till December 1973 in Poland.

French Script font is based on script handwriting and engraving used in formal announcements and invitations in general, and specifically on a 1905 ATF face named Typo Upright," by Morris Fuller Benton. French Script lends itself to typesetting in which an elegant mood is desired. French Script is an upright script font with an engraved appearance and decorative capitals. "

This font was inspired by the Cancellaresca pattern (look at our 1491 Cancellaresca and 1610 Cancellaresca), in particular Spanish one, from Francisco Lucas, who was working in the late 1500s. It is a modern variation, including West European accented characters and a lot of initial and final alternates (not in the Mac TT version for technical reasons).

The 1920 edition of “How to Paint Signs and Sho’ Cards” by E. C. Matthews offered a number of examples of then-modern lettering styles for sign painters and show card writers. A bold display alphabet made with a round lettering nib is now available as Show Card Pen JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.