Broad pen script typeface from 1930s and 40s; magazine advertising.

Broad pen script typeface from 1930s and 40s; magazine advertising.

Broad pen script typeface based on late 1960s Turkish signage.

Broad pen script typeface from 1930s and 40s; magazine advertising.

Broad pen script typeface based on late 1960s Turkish signage.

F. H. Schneidler’s ‚Kontrast‘, released by Weber in 1930, revived.

Broadway No2 is a decorative 1920s font published by SoftMaker.

Palette was designed by Martin Wilke for Berthold in 1950.

From the same page of a vintage German lettering textbook entitled “50 Alphabete fur Technikur und Fachschulen” (loosely translated to “50 Alphabets for Technicians and Specialized Schools”) that inspired Trippy Hippy JNL comes Eleckatrical Banana JNL. It’s another novelty, free form Art Nouveau hand lettered alphabet that works well in recreating 1920s period pieces or for designing a retro-inspired rock and roll concert poster reminiscent of the 1960s. The name of the typeface is from a line in the 1966 pop hit “Mellow Yellow by Donovan (Leitch), and his extended pronunciation of ‘electrical’: “…E-lec-a-tric-cal’ banana is going to be the very next craze…” Caps only Fonts. Eleckatrical Banana JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Leipziger Ornamente is another font inspired by the architecture of my home city. I draw inspiration from various buildings of the 1920s to the 1950s. The majority of motives in this font is adapted from sgraffitto ornaments found on residental buildings in the northern borough of Gohlis. The Leipsic Ornaments offer a delicate range of both floral and geometric embellishment pieces, to create fresh and lively designs from. You can use this font for smart and cool borders, frames and textures as well as for sparkling headpieces or vibrant eye-catchers in magazines, brochures, leaflets or personal stationary. If you’re interested in more ornaments, see also my classical Andron Ornamente, the splendid Art nouveau Behrens Ornaments and the exciting Art Deco Arthur Ornaments.

In 1932, Xanti Schawinsky (1904?1979) designed an alphabet that combines two styles: a neo-classic stroke contrast paired with characteristics of stencil lettering. This mix is a child of its time and seems to reflect the Swiss and Italian biography of Schawinski. Luca Pellegrini took on the modern look and re-drew the letterforms, interrupted by subtle spaces where thick and thin strokes meet. Although Schawinsky had already designed a complete alphabet and figures in the early 1930s, Pellegrini took the character set to another level, adding currency signs, mathematical symbols and all kinds of punctuation ? anything needed to set more than just headlines. Xants is a blend of Swiss elegance and exclusiveness with Italian charm and imperfection, a combination that never gets old.

Longshanks is a condensed serif display font with a low waist, blade-like strokes, and other unusual detailing. This font features a medium-low x-height and works very well at larger display sizes. It's an excellent choice for any headline, banner, or title that would benefit from an old-world, historical, fantasy, magic, or sword & sorcery vibe. It also harks back to the metallic foil stamped type treatments from 1980s – 1990s romance novel book cover design. The offbeat features are subtle enough to leave this font with a very high degree of legibility in spite of its strong and dynamic treatment of certain serifs and finials. The namesake for this typeface is King Edward I of England, whose nickname was Edward the Longshanks.

The above-the-store signage for many newspaper stands, soda shops, candy stores, luncheonettes and pharmacies of the 1950s and early 1960s were what was referred to as “privilege signs” provided by one of the major cola brands. Consisting of the brand’s emblems on the left and right, the remainder of the sign would carry the desired message of the storekeeper (such as “Candy – Soda – Newspapers”) in prismatic, embossed metal letters. Inspired by these vintage signs, Privilege Sign JNL recreates the condensed sans serif lettering style in both regular and oblique versions. The typefaces are solid black, but adding a selected color and a prismatic effect from your favorite graphics program can reproduce the look and feel of those old businesses.

Nevoclara is a Modern Vintage font with beautiful ligatures, with special alternative glyphs, and multilingual support. It is inspired by the decorative arts and architecture movement that originated in the 1920s and developed into a major style in the Western European United States during the 1930s. Nevoclara includes luxury glyphs that are made individually and carefully produced, the aim is to create a quality and elegance that is sleek and semi-modern that symbolizes the glory and sophistication of vintage. It combines modernist style with good craftsmanship. Nevoclara is perfect for your project and allows you to create designs, headlines, posters, logos, badges, t-shirts and many more that are beautiful. It is also best used for posts, logos, posters, certificates, labels and more.

Alfina is a chancery typeface that shows a modern temperament, but is inspired by the eponymous town of Torre Alfina, one of the most beautiful medieval villages of Italy, situated on the edge of the plateau Alfina, a few miles from of Orvieto. The place where is the castle is steeped in history. Its roots date back to the Lombard kingdom (seventh century); later it was under the rule of Monaldeschi (1200-1700) and more recently (1880) the property of the rich French banker Count Edoardo Cahen of Antwerp, who was responsible for the present aspect of the Castle. Alfina has soft lines, very slender upper cases and thin overlapping strokes; The stylistic alternates are particularly important, and the type is enriched by many, different OpenType features.

Brosse is a family of slabserif faces which emphasise clarity and geometric cleanliness of line, in a 'Brave New World' sprit that harks back to the 1930s and possibly also to postwar rebuilding in the 1950s. Its clear legibility makes it ideal for poster work and titles, as well as for signage of any kind. Eight faces are offered, regular and italic, bold and bold italic, as well as a condensed face and a bold weight thereof. There are also two decorative forms- outline and embossed faces. All faces include a large character set and extensive Opentype features. A Demonstrater version of the regular face is also offered free of charge-this is fully licensed but has a signnificantly reduced character set.

The hand composition typeface was developed at the Ossip Lehmann type foundry (St. Petersburg) in 1904-07 (after designs by Alexander Leo?). It was redeveloped at Polygraphmash in 1960s for slugcasting composition. Named after Russian Empress Elizabeth I (1709-61). Based on typefaces of George Revillon type foundry of 1840s, though some characters’ shapes were redrawn similar to Russian Academy of Sciences typefaces (mid-18th century). Sharp contrast, strong weight Modern Serif with archaic flavor. The typeface is useful in text and display composition, in fiction, historical, and art books, especially connected to the 18th or 19th centuries. It looks great in Russian classical literature such as Pushkin and Gogol works. The revised, improved and completed digital version was designed at ParaType in 2001 by Lyubov Kuznetsova.