This in-yer-face kinda face is based on a broad brush font from "The New ABC of Showcard & Ticketwriting" by C. Milne, published in Australia in the late 1930s. Brought to my attention by Ms. Kat Black, and named in honor of Ms. Kat's grannie, to whom the book originally belonged. The Postscript and Truetype versions contain a complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252); in addition, the Opentype version supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages as well.

A poster for a Dutch stage revue from the nineteen-teens, designed by Willy Sluiter, provided the template for this warm, wavy and whimsical headline font. The Opentype version of this font supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages, as well as Unicode 1252 (Latin) languages.

Here's a fresh version of an old favorite, Loose New Roman, from the Schaedler Studio of New York. Easy, breezy and carefree, it's a natural for happy headlines. Both versions of the font contain the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

An antique, hand-cut metal stencil for the Chicago-Burlington rail route stating “CB&Q RR – Private Property” inspired the sans serif stencil design Midwest Railway JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Frank H. Atkinson was a popular Art Nouveau sign painter in Chicago, Illinois. He designed signs for the Cadillac Motor Car Co., Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and the department store Marshall Field. Oddly enough, he even designed signs for other sign painters. In 1908 he published a book, Sign Painting, which sold well. French Plug, a bold, rounded, all-cap design in an American Art Nouveau style from that book. It has a relaxed, easy-going informality that is useful for ads and flyers. It also would have fit very nicely with many French posters of the period.

A neat face with pronounced spur serifs which several foundries have already digitized. We like ours better though, because we have drawn a lowercase which was lacking in the original. Barnhart Bros. & Spindler of Chicago introduced this type in 1888.

Our notes say this was originated at the Barnhart Bros. & Spindler foundry in Chicago, and named Cable. Perhaps so, but we didn't find it in any of our BB&S catalogs. We made a few changes to improve the color.

Adhesive Letters JNL was drawn from sample letters and numbers once manufactured by the Tablet and Ticket Company of Chicago. Originally sold under the brand name of Willson's, these gummed letters were available in a number of styles and sizes.

This popular type was manufactured by the Crescent Type Foundry of Chicago and sold on their behalf by a half dozen other foundries. Introduced in the early 1890s, just as tastes were swinging away from the excesses of the Victorian period.

AdvertiserÆs Gothic Light, from a volume of headline fonts, was designed by Robert Wiebking in 1917. Wiebking was a skilled type engraver from Chicago who created his own pantographic machine, used to cut punches drawn by other successful type designers, including Frederic Goudy.

Beauvoir is based on a sample of Art Nouveau period hand-drawn poster lettering designed by Chicago designer Frank Atkinson. The original sample was limited, so we extrapolated from it and added new characters and character variations to make the final result more interesting.

Indy is the work of Chicago-based lettering designer Charles Hughes. The lowercase letters link together to evoke the look of true handwriting and complement a generous and graceful capital alphabet. Indy is a refined handwriting script ideal for anything needing a touch of elegance.

Stencil Octoid JNL was inspired by a set of twelve inch tall stencil letters and numbers made by Duro Art Industries in Chicago. The bold type style with angled rather than rounded corners gives the font a strong feel of industry or military usage.

Ronde Script (Ronde meaning "A kind of script in which the heavy strokes are nearly upright, giving the characters when taken together a round look.") is based on the original design named Parisian Ronde released in 1878 by the Chappelle Foundry in Paris. Other versions of this script include Inland French Script, French Script, French Plate, and Typo Upright. Different type foundries tied to the releases of this design include Mayeur (Paris), Stephenson Blake (London), Bernhardt Brothers & Spindler (Chicago), and ATF (Elizabeth, NJ). This style of script has been a very popular choice in designing wedding invitations and so many other formal announcements for over 130 years. Its very readable, formal and elegant with an antique or retro feel.

Sign Project JNL is based on vintage water-applied decals once made by the Meyercord Decal Company of Chicago (and later Carol Stream), Illinois. These decals were popular during the 1950s and 1960s for window signage, boat identification, mailbox names and numbers and hundreds of other projects.

A set of cling vinyl letters and numbers for titling home movies or slides is the basis for Home Movies JNL. The set was made by the Clingtite Letters Company of Chicago and retailed for $2.95. It was advertised in many photographic publications of the 1950s.

This interesting type was introduced by the Chicago firm of Marder, Luse & Company in 1890, about the time designers were beginning to lose some of the excessive ruffles and flourishes that characterized the Victorian age. Originally a caps-only font, we have added a lowercase to match.

The classic blues album "I'm Jimmy Reed" released on the legendary Vee-Jay label out of Chicago featured title lettering in a bouncy, fun, casual take on the classic Latin Wide style of alphabet. Bluesman JNL offers a full digital typeface based on that album titling.

Everyone likes getting a handwritten letter. At least, they would if anyone still hand wrote letters. We heard a story about a type designer who gets a Christmas card from his niece. He’s been out of touch with her for years and is both delighted and surprised to receive a handwritten note. His first thought is “How sweet; how very nice to hear from her.” His second thought is,”Great font potential; I could use this.” And he did. Carissa has a fresh, spontaneous feel, with a wonderful use of uppercase letters (B and R, etc.) within the lower case. Useful as a personal font or for an off-beat menu...

Designed by Ernst Lauschke in 1888 and issued by Barnhart Bros. & Spindler foundry in Chicago under the name Dormer. It was revived in 1923 by the foundry with a new name, Pekin. We have "regularized" the face for modern use, but have included the changed characters as alternates.

Signboard JNL is based on die-cut cardboard display lettering once made by the Duro Decal Company (now Duro Art Industries) of Chicago, Illinois. Available in various sizes, these letters and numbers could be affixed to a number of different surfaces to make affordable signs, displays and show cards.

Described as “An extended script type that lends itself well to fine fashion, ready-to-wear and all quality merchandise” in a marketing blurb pitching Beaufont by the Morgan Sign Machine Company of Chicago for their Line-O-Scribe sign printing system. This advertising script font was originally manufactured exclusively for Morgan Sign under license by the Hamilton Wood Type Manufacturing Company. The source patterns and original artwork for this typeface exist in the archives of the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum, and were used for this fresh digitization of this font. This digital take includes alternate letters as originally designed in the mid-century wood type version, and now includes a full extended latin character set with over 350 characters.

Soft Rock is a bold condensed sans serif with rounded contours that contrives to be gentle and dynamic at the same time: rather like the soft rock bands (Chicago, Air Supply, Fleetwood Mac etc) after which it is named. It's a warm, friendly font ideal for branding everything from soup to soft furnishings.

Paint Store JNL is the third in Jeff Levine's series of display fonts modeled from actual water-applied decals that were manufactured by the Duro Decal Company of Chicago (now Duro Art Industries). Duro Decals were sold in paint, hardware, variety and art supply stores, and even [in some cases] print shops.

Printed Letters JNL is from stamped impressions made by a children's sign making set by the Superior Marking Equipment Company of Chicago - circa the 1940's. The set consisted of individually mounted rubber stamps - easy enough for happy kiddies to print signs, name plates or (unfortunately for their parents) on the walls... Limited character set.

Frantic Pace JNL is based on hand lettering found on the lid of a late 1950s or early 1960s edition of the Print Craft alphabet printing set once manufactured by the Superior Marking Equipment Company of Chicago. The free-form spurred serif lettering is fun and casual; giving the impression of movement or action.

Fat and sassy, this ultrabold brush font is based on the works of lettering legend Mike Stevens as seen in his book, Mastering Layout. A natural choice for can't-miss headlines, this typeface also works surprising well for short blocks of body copy. Both the OpenType and Truetype versions of this font contain the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Horror Korpus is an artistic rebellion, a statement against the clean and the pristine, evoking the gritty scenes of a horror movie into your design. With flames burning in its strokes and a wild, untamed demeanor, this rough font wears a garment of distress, with eroded and destroyed textures that screams an extreme temperament. It stands defiant, bearing a resemblance to edgy tattoo designs that adorn the bravest of souls.

The set of vintage brass alphabet stencils that inspired Stencil Mark JNL was manufactured by the Chicago Firm of Meyer and Wenthe. Pete Skoglund of Unadilla, NY was selling a set of these stencils on Ebay, and was nice enough to provide Jeff Levine some images to use as models for the design of this typeface.

Featuring condensed, block hand lettering, Informational Sans JNL was modeled from a selection of water applied sign decals once made by the Duro Decal Company of Chicago and is available in both regular and oblique versions. About fifty different small decal signs covered a wide range of general purpose information such as “Open”, Closed”, “Please Pay When Served”, etc.

Plastic Display JNL was sketched from photo examples in an old sales promotion sheet for the Movitex Do-It-Yourself Plastic Sign Kit. The set was manufactured by Pryor Marking Products of Chicago, and featured a board with pre-spaced holes in a grid to which the letters and numbers would be inserted to form the sign.

Folsom JNL is one of the many stencil fonts Jeff Levine has recreated from original sources. This particular design was modeled from a kit made by the Meyercord Company of Chicago. In the original, some of the letters were solid rather than stencil forms, but Jeff gave all of the letters the traditional treatment for continuity.

Jeff Levine acquired a set of original water-applied decals made by the Duro Decal Company of Chicago (now Duro Art Industries) and painstakingly recreated one of the classic hand-drawn typefaces from the Duro line. Named after the street where the company is located, Juneway JNL is an authentic reproduction for the computer-based designer.

While Walking along the shore of our Main Port to Europe in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, my 14 year old son Jules first hardly dared to step in the mud for he was wearing his brand new sneakers. Concentrating in where he put his feet, he noticed he made a character! The FootPrint-Regular was born! The FootPrint-Regular is a powerful header-typeface, but funny enough it's usable as small copy too! Blaze your Trail! Anything you can imagine on Police investigations, Bloodhound Thrillers, Trails, Tracks and Traces, anything about Outdoor Stores, Tracking or even maybe Pedestrian Clubs, or things like Survival Sports, Walking Events or Hiking Gear; Blaze'm your FootPrint-Regular Trail on all Banners, Blimps, Ads and Doormats!

Arnold Boecklin is a true Art Nouveau font, evocative of outdoor cafes in the years prior to World War l. Arnold Boecklin seems to be telling a story, with its decorative curves and varying emphasis of strokes. The Arnold Boecklin font should be used for specific copy as in headlines or advertisements, bearing in mind its strong design. Arnold Boecklin is a trademark of Linotype GmbH and may be registered in certain jurisdictions.