Syntax was designed by Swiss typographer Hans Eduard Meier, and issued in 1968 by the D. Stempel AG type foundry as their last hot metal type family. Meier used an unusual rationale in the design of this sans serif typeface; it has the shapes of humanist letters or oldstyle types (such as Sabon), but with a modified monoline treatment. The original drawings were done in 1954; first by writing the letters with a brush, then redrawing their essential linear forms, and finally adding balanced amounts of weight to the skeletons to produce optically monoline letterforms. Meier wanted to subtly express the rhythmical dynamism of written letters and at the same time produce a legible sans serif typeface. This theme was supported by using a very slight slope in the roman, tall ascenders, terminals at right angles to stroke direction, caps with classical proportions, and the humanist style a and g. The original foundry metal type was digitized in 1989 to make this family of four romans and one italic. Meier completely reworked Syntax in 2000, completing an expanded and improved font family that is available exclusively from Linotype GmbH as Linotype Syntax. In 2009 the typeface family was renamed into a more logical naming of "Syntax Next" to fit better in the Platinum Collection naming." Syntax® Next font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Designed over three years after the second World War, and published in 1949 by the Nebiolo foundry, Normandia was Alessandro Butti’s take on the fat face. As it usually was with Butti’s designs, this face effectively injected a catchy yet expertly calculated calligraphic spin into its source of inspiration — which was the essentially geometric/deco, thicker model of Bodoni’s very popular aesthetic. The metal Normandia saw some widespread use for a handful of years after its publication, not least because of the multitude of sizes in which it was available. It stepped out of the limelight by the mid-1950s, due to a combination of the popularity of cold type and Nebiolo’s refusal to retool its faces for new technologies. It was copied by a few small film typesetting outfits on both sides of the Atlantic, but never really found its way back to the mainstream. By the time computer type became the norm, Normandia was pretty much relegated to a type historian’s collection of anecdotes. This digital update of the classic series revives and refines the three original metal designs (Tonda/Regular, Corsiva/Italic, and Contornata/Outline) and expands the character set to more than 600 glyphs per font, including small caps, six types of figures, fractions and nut fractions, a full set of f-ligatures, some stylistic alternates, and other fine typography niceties.

Roxic doesn’t push boundaries, or break them; Roxic doesn’t recognise your pedestrian concept of boundaries. It doesn’t so much laugh in the face of convention as much as it refuses to acknowledge its very existence. Roxic is a font for the modern day, but without the layers of pretension so often associated with modernism. Elegantly conveying your message with its uniquely delicate sturdiness, Roxic is a font that people haven’t met before, but they can’t help but trust it.

A geometric sans serif with a square chiseled appearance. Precise curves are met with straight lines and tapered angles to produce a fresh, technical typeface. It’s large x-height and neutral width give it good legibility at small point sizes. These refined rectangular features make it ideally suited to a wide range of modern applications. Details include 550 characters with alternative lowercase a, e, g and y. 5 variations of numerals, manually edited kerning and Opentype features.

The Garamond family tree has many branches. There are probably more different typefaces bearing the name Garamond than the name of any other type designer. Not only did the punchcutter Claude Garamond set a standard for elegance and excellence in type founding in 16th-century Paris, but a successor, Jean Jannon, some eighty years later, cut typefaces inspired by Garamond that later came to bear Garamond’s name. Revivals of both designs have been popular and various over the course of the last 100 years. When ATF Garamond was designed in 1917, it was one of the first revivals of a truly classic typeface. Based on Jannon’s types, which had been preserved in the French Imprimerie Nationale as the “caractères de l’Université,” ATF Garamond brought distinctive elegance and liveliness to text type for books and display type for advertising. It was both the inspiration and the model for many of the later “Garamond” revivals, notably Linotype’s very popular Garamond No. 3. ATF Garamond was released ca. 1918, first in Roman and Italic, drawn by Morris Fuller Benton, the head of the American Type Founders design department. In 1922, Thomas M. Cleland designed a set of swash italics and ornaments for the typeface. The Bold and Bold Italic were released in 1920 and 1923, respectively. The new digital ATF Garamond expands upon this legacy, while bringing back some of the robustness of metal type and letterpress printing that is sometimes lost in digital adaptations. The graceful, almost lacy form of some of the letters is complemented by a solid, sturdy outline that holds up in text even at small sizes. The 18 fonts comprise three optical sizes (Subhead, Text, Micro) and three weights, including a new Medium weight that did not exist in metal. ATF Garamond also includes unusual alternates and swash characters from the original metal typeface. The character of ATF Garamond is lively, reflecting the spirit of the French Renaissance as interpreted in the 1920s. Its Roman has more verve than later old-style faces like Caslon, and its Italic is outright sprightly, yet remarkably readable.

For everyone wishing for a modern serif that’s as clear and readable as a sans in restrictive digital environments, meet ABI by Reza Bohloul. Sans serifs are commonly used on small screens to save space and carry a modern tone and Abi is the best one. Abi now provides a serif option for these restrictive digital environments. The screen has met its serif match. Abi was created from and for the digital world. Abi supports Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Kurdish languages.

Hello, friends! I recently bought myself an old game console, the SEGA Mega Drive 2. For a long time I couldn't understand why, when I was a kid, it seemed incredible to play it. Nowadays there are a lot of games with stunning graphics and realism, but still there is something warm and light in old games. Maybe it's just a memory of a carefree childhood. After playing it, I decided to create this font so that everyone could do something in the style of old games that an army of designers and programmers hadn't worked on yet. Good luck and love to you!

The letters and numbers of a home movie titling kit from circa the 1950s or 1960s called the Magna Tech Titler Number 312 were die-cut from cardboard with a magnetic backing and were styled after Futura Bold. The user of this set composed the desired title or phrase onto a metalized board and the result was photographed with their 8 or 16mm camera. Because the dies of the characters were handmade, very slight variations in the shape and stroke width of the lettering would occasionally occur. These variations were incorporated into the design of the digital type face. Intermediate JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Homenko was the only Ukrainian typeface for metal type casting developed in the last century. It has already become a 'classic'. Vasyl Homenko worked on it from 1964 to 1967. The typeface successfully combines the qualities of lineal humanist typefaces with the Ukrainian tradition of asymmetrical slab serif. The works on its digitization and further development has been in progress since 2000. The present version contains Latin Extended characters, Cyrillic with stressed alternates and several ornaments based on Vasyl Homenko's works. It works perfectly for books for children and is ideal for publications related to culture, history, literature and traditional art of Ukraine and other nations of Eastern Europe.

During development of Colophon 30, the base font of the typeface family, two requirements emerged; namely that it should demonstrate good legibility and robustness when used for text composition, and where individual characters become more apparent, as in much larger sizes, these should appear well formed. Colophon 60 and 90 progressively increase in x-height to allow the counters to retain openness. The italics lean towards informality, this being apparent in the descender tails. On account of its neutrality there are few instances where the use of Colophon would be inappropriate; a quality that can also be attributed to Roy Cole's other typeface families: Lina, Zeta and Coleface.

MetroBots is a fun loving, non-traditional but very functional family of 6 fonts made of big city skies, the long tropical morning shadows of ancient ziggurats and entire pueblo villages, nestled into the steep cliff-sides of sage-topped mesas in south western deserts. This is a good solid, but kind of whacky looking display type family borrowing from the heft of good old-fashioned children�s wooden building blocks and the look and feel of both modern and ancient pueblo architecture. With a bit of the not-so-subtle expressiveness of a comical robot on a WD-40 high on the side.

Banco was the first typeface work of French designer Roger Excoffon and was released in 1952. The strong forms look as though they were rolled out of sheet metal and feature upright, tapering strokes. The slight slant, the varying heights of stroke ends, and the relationships between line and curve give Banco font its sense of liveliness and dynamism. Excoffon did not design a matching lower case alphabet for his capitals, but this was accomplished later by Phill Grimshaw, who also designed the light weight. He deliberately 'underdesigned' the lower case forms, producing a more reserved alphabet based on the design ideas of the original.

Inversion is a display typeface that is based on a rare bit of lettering from a 1910 German lettering book. What was the inspiration for designing the font? I found the base lettering years ago in a specimen and scanned it. I've used it perennially for assorted metal bands' logos, and finally decided to digitize it. What are its main characteristics and features? It is a spidery bit of lettering that would work well in Harry Potter movies or on album covers. Usage recommendations: Display type for use in materials that are meant to have a hand-wrought look circa the turn of the century.

Rough and ready, bold and urgent. Or playful and fun in bright colours. The original letters were cut from actual potatoes, then scanned in and converted to vector outlines. Lighter and more heavily inked versions were used for the three variants. Using Opentype character-substitution technology, Salvation rotates through three versions of each letter to create a naturally uneven printed effect. Unlike hot metal type, the potatoes were cut the right way around. This produced reversed prints, which were then flipped back in Photoshop. Originally produced for Hughes' Get Lettering activity book, the font was then extended to cover numbers, punctuation and full European language support.

Dez Yinznat Stencil is a condensed stencil sans serif inspired by the industrial city of Pittsburgh, PA USA. Stencil type was often used in the steel mills, scrap metal yards, railroads, warehouses, and other industrial institutions of Pittsburgh and is almost a signature for the City. The name comes from combining two colloquial expressions common to Pittsburgh. “Yinz” is used there like "Y'all" is used in Southern States. "n'at" or sometimes "N@" is used to replace “and that” when ending a phrase. This font is dedicated to the hard-working people who made Pittsburgh what it is, N@. High-tech subjects can also find a friend in Dez Yinz'nat.

My family and I recently moved to a ‘fixer upper’ farm from the 1930’s. It came with a slightly run down barn, 4000 square metres of land and a LOT of redcurrant bushes. I can’t really say that I am overly fond of them. I find them a bit too tart. As a kid, I used to smother them in sugar, but I can’t do that any longer, since I am a responsible dad… ;-) Redcurrant is a slightly wonky, slightly crazy handmade font. It can be used for book covers or post cards, but feel free to use it for whatever. Comes with cute little swashes as well.

Up until the advent of modern packing and shipping methods, the common way to mark merchandise or other items to be transported was through the use of a brass stencil. These marking devices were hand stamped (or punched) using metal dies that were struck against sheets of brass to create the letters, numbers and other symbols [unlike the steel rule die cutting method used for manufacturing paper stencils]. One such example of an antique marking stencil had letters and numbers approximately one quarter of an inch in height, and Stamped Brass Stencil JNL recreates the design complete with the unusual variations of character shapes and widths.

A really, really long time ago, I watched a movie called ‘The China Syndrome’ (starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemon and Michael Douglas). It was one of those disaster movies that were quite popular at the time (I also recall airports, alien viruses and skyscraper fires). Anyway, when I finished this font, I suddenly (and quite inexplicably) remembered that movie, so I named this font after it. China Syndrome is a legible brush font - ideal for your product packaging and halloween posters. Maybe use it for a metal album cover, a book about nuclear disasters or, dunno, the logo of your really strong coffee brand. Whatever. Just enjoy!

Camelot was the first of over 100 typefaces designed by Frederic Goudy. The upper case characters were drawn in 1896 for the Dickinson Type Foundry. Goudy was so encouraged by his check for $10 (double what he asked for the drawings), that he spent the next 50 years designing type. The lower case was added by the Dickinson foundry. This Lanston digital release includes a Text version based on the smaller point sizes of the metal type and a Display version based on the larger sizes. The two appear different in size but share the exact same line weight when at the same point size.

Cruller is a display typeface that is based on a rare bit of lettering from a 1910 German lettering book. What was the inspiration for designing the font? I found the base lettering years ago in a specimen and scanned it. I've used it perennially for assorted metal bands' logos, and finally decided to digitize it. What are its main characteristics and features? It is a spidery bit of lettering that would work well in Harry Potter movies or on album covers. Usage recommendations: Display type for use in materials that are meant to have a hand-wrought look circa the turn of the century.

Goudy Trajan Pro is based on the drawings by F.W. Goudy of his rendition of the capital letters inscribed on the Trajan column in Rome, rather than on his subsequent metal type, Trajan (Title), released in 1930. Goudy Trajan Pro includes almost 1500 glyphs in each of three weights, including: uppercase, alternates, swash caps, small caps, vertically centered small(er) caps, dozens of fleurons, and much more. Supports Latin, Cyrillic and modern Greek scripts. Many thanks to Krassen Krestev, Sergiy Tkachenko, and Adam Twardoch for their suggestions for improving the Cyrillic glyphs; and to Alex Sheldon for his suggestions for swash caps and improved OpenType features.

The origin of AM Floriana is already several decades ago. At a time when there was no photo set and the choice of metal type fonts was still very manageable, Alois Menacher received an order to design a custom business logo from a flower shop. He then created a hand-drawn lettering based on the form of leaves and plants. Now Alois Menacher professionally designed and developed AM Floriana on the basis of this lettering. AM Floriana is ideally suited for packaging design, as well as for display design and logo design. AM Floriana is available as a Bold version and will soon be complemented by further cuts.

I used to live in the English Lake District, where I worked in an outdoor gear store. I bought a bright red mountain bike and each day, after work, I cycled up the mountain and hurtled down - heavy metal blasting from my MP3 player. Of course, the bike was a regular MTB, so it got some serious damage after a while, but the adrenaline rush was great! Downhill Dive is a great brush font (made with actual brushes and ink on paper - no tablets involved here!). It is an ode to that wonderful time spent in England. Downhill Dive comes with some really nice ligatures.

Arthur Baker's display script Sassafras, designed in 1995, is based on the natural inline effect created when writing with a split-metal nibbed pen. Black and white are nicely balanced, giving this calligraphic face a remarkably smooth appearance. The regular and italic versions of Sassafras include two alternate faces: one with long, tall ascenders and regular-length descenders, and one with shortened ascenders and descenders that allow it to fit where its companion might not. In both, the ascenders increase in width as they move upward, while the descenders taper to a fine point. This variety of form makes Sassafras a very flexible choice for display work.

FF Real is a convincing re-interpretation of the German grotesque style from between 1998 and 1908, but with much more warmth and improved legibility as well as a hint towards the warmer American grotesques. Later on, not just slanted styles, but a “proper” italic version was added inspired by the way Roman and Italic are distinguished in traditional serif faces. NEW: a specially created set of obliques were added in 2018 to give designers more design flexibility, for those looking for a less calligraphic look. In 2020 the family was extended with matching condensed weights. FF Real was originally conceived by Erik Spiekermann as one text weight and one headline weight to be used as the only faces in his biography ‘Hello I am Erik’, edited by Johannes Erler, published in 2014. While Spiekermann drew the alphabets, he passed on the font data to Ralph du Carrois and Anja Meiners who cleaned it up and completed it. In the meantime, FF Real has been extended to a family of two styles and 65 weights each. The design of FF Real is rooted in early static grotesques from the turn of the century. Several German type foundries – among them the Berlin-based foundries Theinhardt and H. Berthold AG – released such designs between 1898 and 1908. The semi-bold weight of a poster-size typeface that was lighter than most of the according semi-bolds in metal type at the time, gave the impetus to FF Real’s regular weight. In the words of Spiekermann, the historical example is “the real, non-fake version, as it were, the royal sans serif face“, thus giving his new typeface the name “Real” (which is also in keeping with his four-letter names, i.e. FF Meta, FF Unit). FF Real is a convincing re-interpretation of the German grotesque style, but with much more warmth and improved legibility. With a hint towards the warmer American grotesques, Spiekermann added those typical Anglo-American features such as a three-story ‘g’ and an ‘8’ with a more defined loop. To better distinguish characters in small text sizes, FF Real Text comes in old style figures, ‘f’ and ‘t’ are wider, the capital ‘I’ is equipped with serifs, as is the lowercase ‘l’. What’s more, i-dots and all punctuation are round.

FF Real is a convincing re-interpretation of the German grotesque style from between 1998 and 1908, but with much more warmth and improved legibility as well as a hint towards the warmer American grotesques. Later on, not just slanted styles, but a “proper” italic version was added inspired by the way Roman and Italic are distinguished in traditional serif faces. NEW: a specially created set of obliques were added in 2018 to give designers more design flexibility, for those looking for a less calligraphic look. In 2020 the family was extended with matching condensed weights. FF Real was originally conceived by Erik Spiekermann as one text weight and one headline weight to be used as the only faces in his biography ‘Hello I am Erik’, edited by Johannes Erler, published in 2014. While Spiekermann drew the alphabets, he passed on the font data to Ralph du Carrois and Anja Meiners who cleaned it up and completed it. In the meantime, FF Real has been extended to a family of two styles and 65 weights each. The design of FF Real is rooted in early static grotesques from the turn of the century. Several German type foundries – among them the Berlin-based foundries Theinhardt and H. Berthold AG – released such designs between 1898 and 1908. The semi-bold weight of a poster-size typeface that was lighter than most of the according semi-bolds in metal type at the time, gave the impetus to FF Real’s regular weight. In the words of Spiekermann, the historical example is “the real, non-fake version, as it were, the royal sans serif face“, thus giving his new typeface the name “Real” (which is also in keeping with his four-letter names, i.e. FF Meta, FF Unit). FF Real is a convincing re-interpretation of the German grotesque style, but with much more warmth and improved legibility. With a hint towards the warmer American grotesques, Spiekermann added those typical Anglo-American features such as a three-story ‘g’ and an ‘8’ with a more defined loop. To better distinguish characters in small text sizes, FF Real Text comes in old style figures, ‘f’ and ‘t’ are wider, the capital ‘I’ is equipped with serifs, as is the lowercase ‘l’. What’s more, i-dots and all punctuation are round.

When type historians look back on Jim Rimmer, they will consider him the last type designer who just couldn't let go of metal type, even though he was just as proficient in digital type. Lancelot is one definite case in point: A face designed and produced in digital as late in the game as 1999, only to spring onto the new millenium a couple of years later as a metal type cast in three sizes. That was Jim, a time traveler constantly reminding the craft of its origins. This particular time machine was originally designed as a simple set of attractive caps that emphasize the beauty of the variable conventional dialogue between the drawing tool and the intended final form, and the one exchanged within the totality of the forms themselves. Jim designed two weights, with contrast and counterspace being the main difference between them. In 2013, the Lancelot family was remastered and greatly expanded. Lancelot Pro is now a wonder of over 840 glyphs per font, including smaller versions of the caps in the minuscule slots, and alternates and ligatures that can transform the historic spirit of the original design into anything from half-uncial to outright gothic. Language support goes beyond the extended Latin stuff, to cover Cyrillic and Greek as well. 20% of the Lancelot Pro family's revenues will be donated to the Canada Type Scholarship Fund, supporting higher typography education in Canada.

PF Stamps covers a wide range of applications which require the stamp effect. This is a form of lettering which was very popular in the mid-twentieth century for product labeling. Special machinery was developed by mainly two companies, one in the United States and the other in Germany. This machinery produced paper die cuts which were later used as a base for the marking with a paintbrush. PF Stamps Paint was developed to simulate this type of lettering. Two other styles, Metal and Flex, have been very popular since its original release. The first one was developed from a metallic stamp imprint, whereas the second one with its slight 3-D look simulates letters stamped on plastic. To insure realistic results, uppercase letters are different from lowercase. This is very useful when two similar letters sit next to each other. There 3 more styles: Solid (the stencil in its regular clean form), Rough and the very interesting Blur. The all new “Pro” version comes to complete this series with what was missing: 93 matching frames and frames parts which will satisfy the most demanding designer. This is a bonus font which is available only with the purchase of the whole family. Use these frames “as is” at any size, or connect the frame parts to each other to create longer frames. Finally, this series supports more than hundred languages which are based on the Latin, Greek or Cyrillic scripts.

The lifetime of Lorenzo de Medici (1449-1492) coincides with the rise of metal type as it displaced broad pen calligraphy for the production of books. This revolution marked the end of formal Western calligraphy, as the industry employed metalworkers who designed type according to geometric measurement while calligraphers were forced to become secretaries who practiced handwriting systems. Renaissance Florence should have witnessed the marriage of calligraphy and typography, just as all the other arts and sciences flourished as classical learning was applied to technical advances; but the metalworkers and geometricians measured, dissected and recast the calligraphic letters by crude indirect methods, and in the end took all the life out of them. Here they languished until digital type has made it possible to render the precise motion of the broad pen stroke into type. Lorenzo is a confluence of many strains from the Middle Ages, brought together within the classical harmony of the capitals. It attempts to bypass metal type, using calligraphic means to achieve the precision of type while retaining the life of the stroke: a classical font that would be familiar to Lorenzo himself as well as to the modern eye. The Lorenzo family comes in four weights, ranging from light to bold. Two sets of italics, one with swashed caps and ascenders, complement each weight. The family boasts extensive language support and an offering of over fifty calligraphic ornaments/flourishes included within the character set.

Monotype Bembo is generally regarded as one of the most handsome revivals of Aldus Manutius' 15th century roman type, but the original had no italic counterpart. The story is told that Stanley Morison commissioned Alfred Fairbank, a renowned calligrapher, to create the first italic for Bembo, which was released as metal fonts in 1929. Alfred Fairbank, however, claimed that he drew the design as an independent project and then sold his drawings to Monotype. According to him, the statement has been made that I was asked to design an italic for the Bembo roman. This is not so. Had the request been made, the italic type produced would have been different." Whichever version you believe, it was obvious that Fairbank's design - while undeniably beautiful - was not harmonious with Bembo roman. A second, more conventional italic was eventually drawn and added to the Bembo family. Fairbank's first design, which was based on the work of sixteenth-century writing master Ludovico degli Arrighi, managed to have a modest life of its own as a standalone font of metal type. It never made the leap into phototype fonts, however, and the face could have been lost, were it not for Robin Nicholas, Monotype Imaging's Head of Typography in the United Kingdom, and Carl Crossgrove, a senior designer for Monotype Imaging in the US. Nicholas and Crossgrove used the original drawings for Fairbank as the starting point for a new digital design, but this was only the beginning. They improved spacing, added subtle kerning and optimized the design for digital imaging. In addition, Nicholas created an alternative set of lowercase letters, fancy and swash capitals and enough alternate characters to personalize virtually any design project. By the time his work was complete, Nicholas and Crossgrove had created a small type family that included Fairbank, a revived version of the earlier metal font, and Fairbank Chancery, a more calligraphic rendition of the design. An additional suite of ornate caps, elegant ligatures, and beginning and ending letters accompanies both fonts, as does a full complement of lowercase swash characters. Now, instead of a failed Bembo italic, Fairbank emerges in its true glory: a sumptuous, elegant design that will lend a note of grace to holiday greetings, invitations, and any application where its Italianate beauty is called for."

Josef Albers drew a stencil sanserif form at the Bauhaus in 1923 (published in 1926); Paul Renner and the Bauer design office made a similar design into a typeface in 1929, and rather confusingly included it in the Futura series. Many websites erroneously attribute the stencil design to Josef Albers, but there is no evidence that the two met or collaborated on Futura Black. In 1929 Josef Albers and Jan Tschichold corresponded on the “Transito” typeface (another very similar stencil typeface, while Paul Renner was working with Jan Tschichold.

Sukothai is a traditional Thai design based on early metal type. The classic and distinct forms make it excellent for setting text at small sizes or in large passages. Originally released by Linotype for digital photocomposition, now both the Light and Bold weights are available in OpenType format. This makes it possible to dynamically and precisely position the various levels of superscript and subscript vowel signs and tonal marks. In addition to this, the complete Unicode page range for Thai is covered to ensure flawless conversion between other OpenType fonts using Unicode. The accompanying Latin design matches well in scale and texture and supports most Western European languages making it ideal for setting bilingual texts.

Andron 2 ABC is a product developed especially for children’s literature. It is an ideal choice for primers and other books for the age when children are learning to read. The typeface has the same peak typographic quality as any other font of the praised Andron series—the very best is just good enough for our kids, is it not? As a difference from the normal glyph set (as in Andron 1 Latin or Andron Mega), the letters a, g and y have those simpler single-story shapes that resemble the forms usually taught in writing, which are sometimes called infant letterforms. Now, Andron 2 ABC is available in a full four-font family set.

Madison Antiqua was original released as a metal typeface for hand-setting in 1965. The letters were produced by D. Stempel AG in Frankfurt, Germany. Their design was based heavily on an earlier German typeface named Amts-Antiqua, which had also been produced by Stempel. Amts-Antiqua is credited to Henrich Hoffmeister, and he developed it between 1909 and 1919. Madison Antiqua is an excellent selection for body text in magazines and newspapers. The typeface features a characteristic x-height, and attention-grabbing serifs. For a time, Madison Antiqua was associated with advertising design, because of its namesake: Madison Avenue in New York. Madison Avenue is a global center of advertising excellence.

The original inspiration for Blue Parrot came from a short scene in the classic film Casablanca. For just a few seconds, the exterior of Ferrari's Blue Parrot night club is shown, complete with a wonderful hand-lettered sign... all in capital letters. Blue Parrot JNL was originally released in 2006, and it wasn't long before a few people noted that the font would also look good with a lower case alphabet. The idea of adding in lower case kicked around for a couple of years until Jeff Levine finally completed a revision of the font. In this version there's also an expanded character set thanks to the creative input of Michael Hagemann of Font Mesa.

This is not an historically accurate font but rather one intended capture the spirit of ancient Roman manual type. It was inspired by various patterns used in documents and books created by Latin scribes between the second and fourth centuries. They used either calamus and ink on papyrus, or a pointed metal stick on wax tablets. We have created the font for contemporary use; distinguishing between U and V, I and J, which had no meaning for ancient Latin scribes, and adding thorn, Oslash, Lslash, W, Y and common accented characters that did not exist at the time. A lot of titlings and contextual alternates complete the set. Available only in TTF and OTF format.

There are thousands of pieces of vintage sheet music available for collectors and curiosity seekers. Prior to the 1930s, a large percentage of them had wonderfully hand-lettered titles on the covers, but gradually there was a shift by music publishers to utilizing metal type for the bulk of their output. Normally set in an all-caps format, certain type faces reappeared in growing frequency and familiarity. Composer JNL is one such example of a “workhorse” font, and has been re-drawn and reinterpreted by Jeff Levine Fonts in both regular and oblique versions. It is based on the design "Glamour", released by Lanston Monotype in 1948; which in turn was based on "Corvinus", designed by Imre Reiner.