Mario De Libero designed Swanstone while investigating XIX Century Old Style typefaces. Designs like Theophile Beaudoire’s Romana (1860) or Miller & Richard’s Modernized Old Style, that re-imagined the classical “Venetian” letterforms adding flared serifs and early Art Nouveau influences. In Italy, one of these fonts was Raffaello Bertieri’s Raffaello, which De Libero used as the starting point of his research in a contemporary retelling of these exuberant and sexily unsettling letterforms.

An ad in the April 19, 1919 edition of Motion Picture News for the (now lost) silent drama "Josselyn's Wife" featured some wonderfully stylized Art Nouveau hand lettering. Primarily a condensed character set with rounded serifs, there are a number of letters that take liberties in both width and character shape. Adding to this, [mostly vertical] parallel lines are cut through the characters to create a "striped' type of "double engraved' effect. Silent Drama JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions. **Uppercase