One of the most unusual sets of antique stencils spotted for sale online comprises a set of twenty-four classic logos of early 20th Century automobile companies. For whatever purpose that is now lost to time, these stencils represented the logos of many of America's finest auto manufacturers; most now just historical memories. The logos were painstakingly redrawn, maintaining the distinctive look of the hand made cutting, although it was an exacting process - some of the images were taken at an angle, and a bit of artistic license had to be used as a compensatory factor. It is to be noted that any and all of the logos presented in this font are the intellectual property of the companies, successors or assignees that may still hold the rights to these symbols. No endorsements by such corporate entities are either expressed or implied. Additionally, it is advised that any use of these logos be restricted to historical or hobby purposes, and they should not be used in a way that would construe any authorized reproduction of the logos in a commercial fashion.

Hey, what the hey! You'll have to look twice at this unusual typeface from Jeff Levine. Utilizing the sans serif lettering found in Trade Printer JNL, this novelty font combines two staggered outline versions that are blended together to give a double-image effect. This works best at large point sizes and with minimum word count. Use it for attention-getting phrases such as "You'll See Double" or "You Won't Believe Your Eyes" (or similar ad copy).

The hand lettered show card brush lettering in the trailer for the 1960 musical comedy “Bells are Ringing” (starring Dean Martin and Judy Holliday) inspired Musical Comedy JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

In January of 2006, Jeff Levine fonts debuted with ten releases. Many of those first fonts were based on vintage lettering stencils, which were the "school years" catalyst for Jeff's interest in lettering and type design. Eight years later, his collection of fonts has become a giant catalog of display type ranging from Wood Type revivals to Art Nouveau, Art Deco to stencil, reinterpretations of old favorites, experimental fonts, dingbat fonts and typefaces reflecting a particular decade's styles of cultural popularity. Designs from old lettering books, type catalogs and advertising have also been fodder for many alphabets not previously available in a digital format. Along the way, many unusual lettering sources were also mined for type ideas. Vintage packaging, hand-lettered signage, sign making kits, rubber stamp type, water applied decals and at times just a singular letter example inspired many of the releases within this collection. It was a source of pride for Jeff Levine Fonts to reach 500 releases and a determined goal to grow the type library as far as possible. With this in mind, February 2014 brings forth many new releases. This one in particular, Ornery Polecat JNL, is the 800th typeface release from Jeff.

The pen lettered opening credits for the 1937 film “The Awful Truth” inspired Date Book JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. A hybrid of both Art Nouveau and Art Deco influences, this casual type design is perfect for any project that wants to convey its message in a pleasant, informal manner.

Don’t let the name “Trippy Hippie JNL” fool you. Although the type design fits well with the 1960s-70s hippie movement and the “love generation”, the design is actually straight out of a page from a vintage German lettering textbook entitled “50 Alphabete fur Technikur und Fachschulen” (loosely translated to “50 Alphabets for Technicians and Specialized Schools”). The novelty, free form shapes and stroke weights of this hand lettered alphabet fits well in creating 1920s period pieces or for designing a retro-inspired rock and roll concert poster. Trippy Hippie JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The hand lettered sans serif title on the sheet music for the 1930s song "I'm Alone Because I Love You" was the inspiration for Radio Singer JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Daily Tabloid JNL was redrawn from a set of wood type that was popularly used for newspaper headlines, posters, broadsides and the like.

Punch Tape JNL emulates the old-style pin-punched paper tapes that were used in everything from ticker tapes to moving electronic signage to early digital typesetting equipment. Pin punch characters were also used in the early days of banking as a secure way of canceling a check so that it was rendered useless if re-submitted. In this version, the "dots" are square rather than round.

A typewriter gives you clean, crisp text from its keys, but Type Wronger JNL does anything but this. A distressed typewriter font, this font emits a rough, crude imprint as if the original had been photocopied, copied from that copy and re-copied until the original message had degenerated.

Rustic Setting JNL is the solidified version of Rustic Stencil JNL. Originally modeled from lettering on the cover a children's book, the solid version of this Western-inspired typeface is reminiscent of the classic wood types of the era.

The 1930s French publication L'Art du Tracé Rationnel de la Lettre was a treasure trove of font revival ideas from the Art Deco era. One example featured a serif typeface with a number of stylized characters. This is now available as French Bistro JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

A 1927 travel poster for visiting what was then Palestine and Near East was hand lettered in an early Art Deco thick-and-thin type face. The lettering was redrawn digitally, and is now available as the aptly-named Travel Poster JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

“9 Garcons...Un Cœur” (“9 Boys...One Heart”) is a 1948 French musical starring Edith Piaf. The hand lettered credits for the film are done in a condensed Art Deco sans alphabet, now available digitally as Stage Show JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

While browsing through a Dan Solo type reference book, Jeff Levine fell in love with the multiline stylings of one particular typeface, then sat down and re-drew from scratch his own interpretation of the design. Jeff's version is called Art Lover JNL - offering kudos to art in general, the Art Deco movement and (of course) type design.

Metalform Gothic JNL is based on examples of stamped metal numbers used for house identification and similar purposes. The lettering is square in shape with rounded corners, perfect for text that needs to emit authoritarian messages or instructions.

Tooned Out JNL gives a serif treatment to the cartoon-inspired lettering of Toon-In JNL. Both fonts are great for any casual or fun messages or themes.

Trade Journal JNL and its oblique counterpart are derived from a classic grotesk sans face from the 1800s. Despite the 'Grotesk' style name, the font design is actually quite pleasing to the eye and a nice alternative to many of the sterile sans serif faces of today.

There was a time in this country when many young people studied a trade via a correspondence course through the mail. While this method still exists, it's now more common to find students taking online classes. From an early-1960s course in sign painting comes Sign Merchant JNL, a classic brush stroke type design popularized on show cards and posters.

Western Adventure JNL is based on a classic lettering stencil of the 1950s. Part of a growing series of such stencil fonts by Jeff Levine, it's a perfect complement to Buckdance JNL.

The lettering found on an 1878 Salt Lake City advertisement for the Forepaugh’s Circus inspired Faux Pas JNL, which is a bit of a pun on the circus’ name and also a commentary on how this unusual lettering style seems to break all of the rules on stroke width and balance. According to Wikipedia: “Adam John Forepaugh (February 28, 1831 - January 22, 1890) was an American entrepreneur, businessman, and circus owner. Forepaugh owned and operated a circus from 1865 through 1890 under various names including Forepaugh's Circus, The Great Forepaugh Show, The Adam Forepaugh Circus, and Forepaugh & The Wild West. In 1889, Forepaugh sold his circus acts to James Anthony Bailey and James E. Cooper and he sold his railroad cars to the Ringling Brothers. The Ringlings used the equipment to transform their circus from a small animal-powered production to a huge rail-powered behemoth, which later purchased the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Thus, in liquidating his circus assets, he indirectly contributed to the demise of his arch-rival.” Faux Pas JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Although the early 1900s through the 1920s seemed to be the "Golden Age" of ridiculously long novelty song titles, it appears that even the decade of the 1940s had its fair share as well. Song Merchant JNL was modeled from the hand lettered [but exhausting] title of the sheet music for "Princess Poo-Poo-Ly Has Plenty Pa-Pa-Ya (and she Loves to Give it Away)". Despite the obvious double-entendre inferences of the title, the square block letters with rounded corners make for a useful headline font (even if the source material it was drawn from is quite forgettable). Available in regular and oblique versions.

The cover of the vintage sheet music for "This Little Piggie Went to Market" (from the 1934 film "Eight Girls in a Boat") features a hand-lettered sans serif with intermittent chamfered angles. This became the model for Shopping Basket JNL.

Rushing Pass JNL is the italicized companion font to Forward Passed JNL and Return Pass JNL. This package includes a bonus solid version of the font (Forward Passed Black JNL) at no extra charge.

A brass stencil hand cut to mark the tops of oil drums yielded the lettering for Stencil Plate JNL. The font emulates the retro feel of the unique letter forms found in the original antique design.

Musical Prelude JNL is a thin Art Deco typeface with some interesting character shapes, and was inspired by the hand lettering on the cover of the 1933 sheet music for "Blue Prelude" by Gordon Jenkins and Joe Bishop. It is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Lecture Hall JNL is a reworking of Dance Hall JNL. By removing the Art Deco flairs and realigning the horizontal strokes in order to create a more traditional design, the font now takes on the look of a classic headline face.

The hand-lettered name of the "Junior Showcard Printer" (a 1930s-era rubber stamp printing set manufactured by the Superior Marking Equipment Company of Chicago) served as the prototype for Junior Printer JNL.

Common Stencil JNL takes a vintage lettering stencil from the 1980s with imperfectly bent cutting dies [which unintentionally gave the characters a distressed or "grunge" look] and recreates it in a digital form. The design is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Printers Pictures JNL is another volume of vintage letterpress stock cuts, cartoons, embellishments and what-nots for those who enjoy these charming illustrations.

The hand lettered song title on the sheet music for 1918’s ‘N’ Everything (from the Al Jolson show “Sinbad”) was the inspiration and model for Westfield Nouveau JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Sheet music for the song "My Ideal" (from the 1930 Paramount picture "Playboy of Paris" starring Maurice Chevalier) had the name of the movie hand lettered in an Art Deco, Broadway-influenced type design. This became the inspiration for Parisian Playboy JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A set of vintage dies for stamping text into marble headstones or other monuments manufactured by The Vermont Marble Company was the basis for Marble Cutter JNL. The Vermont Marble Company was in business from the 1880s until 1976, when the company was acquired by OMYA, Inc. The original company (also known as Vermarco) supplied marble for everything from the Jefferson Memorial to the United Nations building and dozens of other historic structures in-between.

Eckhardt Bold JNL continues a series of sign painter-inspired type designs and is named in honor of the late Al Eckhardt, a talented sign man who was a good friend of Jeff Levine for about 18 years until his passing. The font is available in both regular and oblique versions and was inspired by an example found in the 1928 edition of E.C. Mattthews' "How to Paint Signs and Sho' Cards". Both squat and wide for maximum use in wall and window applications, the original name for the design is "Heavy Plug". Plug was the sign painter's term at the time for describing this type of letter form.

For decades, the Greenwich Village area of New York was a home for artists, poets, writers and free-thinkers of their time who were labeled "Bohemians" because of their non-conformist approach to life and the arts. Greenwich Village JNL is an Art Nouveau-influenced typeface with a Bohemian approach in its double crossbars on the A and H; all the while being a nice example of hand lettering found on a vintage piece of sheet music.

While the inspiration for Prospect Heights JNL may have been a piece of vintage sheet music entitled "My Ohio Lullaby", the name is classically New York. To be precise, it's a neighborhood in the Borough of Brooklyn. Prospect Heights JNL is available in both the regular version (with an engraving line) and a solid (plain) version.

Painting Stencil JNL was modeled in part from a vintage set of 8 inch Gothic stencils. Alphabets of this size were generally referred to as painting stencils because each letter could be painted individually in marking signs, streets or buildings, where the classic 'lettering guide' type of stencils were used for smaller projects and had alignment holes for accurate letter spacing as well as multiples letters per page.

The model for Deco Moderne JNL was the hand lettered title on the sheet music cover of "Did You Ever See A Dream Walking" (from the 1933 Paramount musical "Sitting Pretty" starring Jack Oakie, Jack Haley and Ginger Rogers). The typeface is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Sheet music for the 1939 Hoagy Carmichael composition "Hong Kong Blues" features the Far East-influenced hand lettered title that was the basis for Asian Imports JNL; available in both regular and oblique versions. Carmichael performed the song in the 1944 Warner Brothers film "To Have and Have Not", (which first paired Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall). The sheet music was a reissue to capitalize on the song's use in the film.

Now Appearing JNL is a digital version of some hand-lettering spotted on an early 1960s ad for a Miami Beach night club. Its fun, casual appearance makes it perfectly suitable for any project that conveys a relaxed atmosphere. The font was intentionally not kerned, so the free-flowing form of the lettering is at its best, but it can be set tight by hand if a more compact look is desired.