Like traditional athletic block typefaces, Crafton is built with chiseled corners and a rigid skeleton. However, an underlying formula of fervor and functionality emerges in execution. The typeface features traditional block tendencies that are challenged by expressive angles and deviations in line weight that harken to penmanship. Uniquely tapered terminals seen in letters like a, c, and s demonstrate a strong visual energy while increasing legibility. The legs of angled letterforms like the A, v, and y are cropped in a way that further reinforces this motif.

Mr. Nakata is another one of my favorite Haruki Murakami characters. Nakata typeface is handwritten, sloppy and messy, but comes with intelligent features like alternates and ligatures, to make it look more like handwriting and less like a font. Of course, Nakata speaks most Roman-based languages.

Clarinetist Milton ?Mezz? Mezzrow (1899-1972) was a remarkable jazz musician, as becomes evident upon reading his autobiography Really the Blues. His sharp tone and serpentine lines inspired English lettering artist and jazz lover Michael Harvey to create a condensed, oblique display typeface with the look of a chiseled alphabet in the musician's honor. Vertical formats such as book jackets and posters will be invigorated by Mezz as the display face.

Conrad X. 'Cobb' Shinn (Sept. 4, 1887- Jan. 28, 1951) was a Fillmore, Indiana-born post card illustrator who sold a series of successful novelty postcard lines which included (among others) Charlie Chaplin, automobiles and the Dutch culture in the beginning years of the 20th Century. After serving in World War I, Shinn found the market for novelty postcards dwindling, and he also lent his artistic skills to cartoon features and illustrating many children's books [including his own, under the nickname 'Uncle Cobb'] which taught easy step-by-step drawing methods. Some time in the 1920s, he eventually migrated into the field of supplying electrotypes and stereotypes of 'stock cuts' of photos and line art to the printing trade. In the days of letterpress printing, this was the forerunner of paper clip art and its successor, electronic clip art. Purchasing many of his designs from 'journeyman' artists of the time, the diversity of Cobb Shinn's stock cuts library grew with the passing years, reflecting changing times, styles and topics. Some of the illustrators whose signed works were presented in Shinn's 'CUTalogs' [as he called his stock cuts catalogs] include Mary Clemmitt, Louis H. Hippe, E.C. Klinge, Nelson White, Harvey Fuller, Bess Livings, Lois Head, Harvey Peake and Van Tuyl. Upon his passing in 1951, it's not known how long the Indianapolis-based company existed before finally closing its doors. One of the more popular series of cartoons were the line illustrations of men and women affectionately called 'little big head guys' by many modern fans of these cuts because the heads of the characters were drawn somewhat larger than the rest of their bodies. Shinn Kickers JNL is a collection twenty-six of these illustrations, and just like a kick in the shin (as the pun in the name implies), these charming cartoons get your attention.