Browsing online auctions is a wonderful way to pick up ideas for font designs. Take Condensed Stencil JNL for example. This font was modeled from a set of vintage brass interlocking stencils.

The dust jacket for the 1929 Western novel "The Raider" by Charles Alden Seltzer featured the title and author's credits in a hand-lettered extra bold stencil design. This became the model for Raider Stencil JNL.

With all of the stencil fonts created by Jeff Levine from various vintage sources, you would think everything had already been covered. Not so. Along comes Amateur Stencil JNL. Modeled from a child's stencil set from the late 1950's or early 1960's, it vaguely resembles Futura, but its irregular widths and semi-stencil appearance sets it off greatly from that classic typeface.

The sheet music for the 1934 tune "Two in A Dream" had the title hand lettered in a bold type style that utilized some stencil and some solid lettering. Following through on the stencil portion of the design, Tuxedo Stencil JNL was created in both regular and oblique versions. The 1930s were the era of elegant supper clubs and night spots, and it was not unusual to find gentlemen all decked out in formal wear for an evening on the town, hence the font's name.

A vintage hand-punched brass stencil for the Pasadena Playhouse spotted online was the basis for Theatrical Stencil JNL. Slight variations in the letter forms from other similar designs might not quickly be noticed, but there is always a charm in the hand-made look of any stenciled lettering.

Strong Stencil JNL derives its name from its visual appeal. Strong, rugged, all-purpose; this type design (modeled from a set of brass stencils) can take on the toughest type chores and deliver.

A hand-lettered title on a children's stencil book for sale in an online auction served as the basis for Rustic Stencil JNL. Reminiscent of classic wood type, this stencil design adds a Western-influenced flair to any typographic project.

A retro delight for the holiday season is Xmas Stencils JNL, assembled from original 1950s holiday stencils and other sources. Twenty-Six designs offer a generous variety of embellishments for all of your seasonal projects.

The American Sign Museum in Cincinnati houses an amazing collection of vintage signage from all kinds of sources and covering many eras of retail advertising. Someone visiting the museum posted online an image of one particular piece of glass with hand lettering saying “gold leaf” in a bold Art Deco stencil style. Etched Stencil JNL was inspired by that image and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Browsing online auctions and other webs sites often unearths wonderful examples of lettering from the past. A perfect example is Ritz Stencil JNL, modeled after a page from a 1930s-era lettering book. Although this font has similar characteristics to other better-known designs, there are enough unique differences to let it stand on its own as a great example of the Art Deco era.

The type design which inspired Stencil Maker JNL comes from a 1920s-era machine used in movie theaters of the day. It rendered tiny punched out letters (some characters solid and some in stencil form), enabling the user to make projection slides of important messages or general notices for the theater audience to read.

Czech Stencil JNL was modeled from examples of a 1930s-era typeface from Czechoslovokia called "Patrona Grotesk" as seen in the Steven Heller-Louise Fili book "Stencil Type" (published by Thames and Hudson).

Basic Stencil JNL was inspired by a lettering stencil sold by Dymo around 1968 that featured a sans serif design with rounded corners and an overall square look to the characters. This bold stencil design is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A group of unique metal plates with stencil initials cut into them was spotted while browsing through online auctions for source material. What made these items even more interesting was how some of the stencil letters had been sectionally divided - not vertically or horizontally as in most stencils, but lines cut at angles. This is the basis for Steel Stencil JNL and Steel Stencil Oblique JNL.

Malaguena Stencil JNL was derived from hand lettering found on an Art Deco-era piece of vintage sheet music for this familiar tune. According to Wikipedia: “Malagueña is the feminine form of the Spanish language adjective malagueño/ malagueña, ‘pertaining to Málaga’, a Spanish port city.” Additionally: "Malagueña", is a song by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona; written in 1928 it was originally the sixth movement of Lecuona's Suite Andalucia, to which he added lyrics in Spanish. The song has since become a popular, jazz, marching band, and drum corps standard and has been provided with lyrics in several languages.

Favorite Stencil JNL is inspired by and modeled after the classic hot metal typeface "Ludlow Stencil"; a design that enjoyed popularity around the 1950s and is not to be confused with Ludlow's similarly-named "Stencil" which was released in 1937. Available in both regular and oblique versions.

A butterfly, plants, animals, borders, embellishments, a center piece and corner pieces make up this assortment of charming stencil designs re-drawn from vintage sources for Antique Stencils JNL.

An ad spotted in a 1964 issue of Billboard magazine with the words “STAND BACK…” introduced the first record album from then-new stand-up comedian Bill Cosby. The lettering of those two words was in a stencil sans serif design that was a perfect candidate for developing into a digital font. The end result is Advertising Stencil JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Wood Sans Narrow JNL is based on examples of an extra condensed Hamilton Wood Type. The design was cleaned up a bit to provide more uniform stroke widths, but still retains the nostalgic feel of a tall, narrow type face found on broadsides and posters of the late 1800s. It is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Let Me Call You Sweetheart was one of the most popular songs of the early 20th Century, and a piece of vintage sheet music for this tune had its title hand lettered in a square, narrow block lettering style. With a few adjustments and adaptations, this led to the creation of Tall and Narrow JNL, a digital version of the type design which is a perfect alternate to the more conventional condensed faces.

Zarrow is a novelty or letterbat font made up of arrows and other items from archery. It is caps only, but some of the characters on the lower-case keys alternatives to those on the upper-case keys.

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.

NarrowPath is a family of 18 condensed and ultra-condensed sans-serif typefaces. The family was derived from the font family NarrowWay by adding true lower-case letters. Some alternative letters forms can be reached with the OpenType feature of stylistic sets. The character spacing in most of the styles is quite loose and it can be tightened with an application's character spacing if needed. These typefaces are display faces that can be useful for squeezing tall lettering into tight spaces. Uses may include packaging, signage, and titles.

The Tecn@ Narrow family was designed so that its characters are legible and easy to interpret in any writing and where space saving is necessary; among them, the descriptive memory of plans or instructions, for example. Tecn@ Narrow complements the Tecn@ Background Light, Dark Square & Triangle font family.

A revival of one of the popular sans serif wooden type fonts of the 19th century, narrow, short ascenders and descenders.

While the Aspire family finds its roots of inspiration in the ACURA automotive company logo, with its wider base, the Aspire Narrow family condenses those styles into something more suitable for larger bodies of text in a more standardized width. Aspire pays homage the techno display styling of the inspiration logotype, further evolving beyond its brand inspired origin to give birth to a font family that pulls on modern and historical styles. It adopts a sturdy yet approachable style with its uniform stroke forms and curves, and goes on to include a lowercase, numerals, and a comprehensive range of weights, creating a straightforward, uncompromising collection of typefaces that lend a solid foundation and a broad range of expression for designers. Here’s what’s included with the Aspire Narrow Family bundle: 477 glyphs per style - including Capitals, Lowercase, Numerals, Punctuation and an extensive character set that covers multilingual support of latin based languages. (see the 6th graphic for a preview of the characters included) Stylistic Alternates - alternate characters that remove the angled stencil cuts for a more standardized text look. 3 weights in the family: Light, Regular, & Black. 3 obliques in the family, one for each weight: Light, Regular, & Black. Fonts are available in TTF & OTF formats. The TTF format is the standard go to for most users, although the OTF and TTF function exactly the same. Here’s why the Aspire Narrow Family is for you: - You’re in need of a narrow automotive sans font family with a range of weights and obliques. - You’re love that ACURA letter styling, and want to design with a narrow font within that genre. - You’re looking for an alternative to Eurostile with more stylized letterforms. - You’re looking for a clean techno typeface for your starship console labelling. - You just like to collect quality fonts to add to your design arsenal.