Vintage Stencil Motifs JNL is a collection of charming and decorative designs re-drawn (as the name indicates) from vintage source material. For decades, home decorators and do-it-yourself hobbyists embellished furniture, chests, walls and other areas with thematic stencils in both borders and topical vignettes. Today's digital designers can use these stencil patterns to embellish text set in other stencil alphabets or by themselves to evoke the feeling of rustic Americana.

An image of a vintage metal stencil for the French wine region Côteaux du Tricastin [now Grignan-Les Adhemar] served as the inspiration for Wine Vat Stencil JNL. This condensed sans serif design is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Amusement Ride Stencil JNL is based on a hand-cut paper stencil advising the riders to "Hold Onto Your Hats - Don't Stand Up - Let's Go Again!" Available in both regular and oblique versions.

Comic books based on popular characters have been around pretty much since the advent of comic books themselves. An edition of the "Car 54 Where Are You?" series published by Dell (and based on the hit TV show created by Nat Hiken) displayed "Car 54" in a bold hand lettered stencil design on the cover. These few characters became the inspiration for Patrol Car Stencil JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The Vtg Stencil series of fonts from astype are based on real world stencils. The UK No. 76 design was derived from authentic stencil plates from Great Britain. UK No.76 comes in four flavours – the Regular style and the Alt style with alternate and shorter forms of the letters M, W and the figure eight. Since summer 2015 both styles are now available in a Rough version with an extended glyph randomizer. PDF Specimen

The Vtg Stencil fonts from astype are based on real world stencils from several countries. The US No. 4 design was derived from a typical antique US-American stencil-plate. This revolving stencil-plate was invented by Eugene L. Tarbox and patented in 1868. It was a mass factored product and a very common tool in the United States until the success of the interlocking stencils. In case of US No. 4 an original early stencil plate from New York Stencil Works was used. The Regular font style is a clean font design featuring an extended Latin glyph set including some typical stencil ornaments and tabular figures. The Paint font style is made from true stenciled letters and features all the letters of the stencil-plate only. If you like the later interlocking design have a look to my Vtg Stencil US No.2 font. More info: pdf specimen

Antique Stencil Borders Two JNL is the follow-up collection to the July, 2018 release of Antique Stencil Borders JNL and features twenty-six more decorative stencil borders from various vintage sources.

The Vtg Stencil fonts from astype are based on real world stencils from several countries. The Italian stencils that I chose as a model for this font are roughly based on classic French stencil letters. Please compare the figures (numbers) with their French counterparts. However, the Italian stencils are made with a different production technique. The design of the letters is clearly not punch-cut into the plates, maybe they are drilled, milled or etched. Details such as the serifs look bold and clumsy, and when using the stencils as they are meant, with viscous sign paint, smaller details easily fade away. So I took my freedom to design a font close to the original design but adding several typographic tweaks to let it shine, hoping to get closer to the intended design idea of these Italian stencils. Enjoy the vintage!

The Vtg Stencil series of fonts from astype are based on real world stencils. These stencils were used in the 50's and 60's by the US Army. If you are interested in the current stencil design, please have a look at Vtg Stencil US No.72 .

The Vtg Stencil series of fonts from astype are based on real world stencils. All styles offering an extended Latin character set. » pdf specimen «

The Vtg Stencil series of fonts from astype are based on real world stencils. Have a look at the Vtg Stencil Ornaments A .

Vtg Stencil Germany No.101 is modeled after historic stencil plates from Bavaria. The design is a blackletter chancery, a romantic reprise of a style that was common in German writing offices from the 14th to the 16th century. The flourishes stylistically quote the Baroque period. A talented mind, perhaps around 1890, has transformed the textura shapes into a modular stencil system. Many elements are repeated throughout the glyph set - see for example the initial swashes on the letters A, B, U etc. Overall, this decorative blackletter doesn’t look like a stencil design. Maybe it was originally used by a sign painter, and all the typical stencil bridges would have been painted over in the final work. If you’re looking for a decorative blackletter font with a unique touch and a romantic feel, you will love Germany No.101.

The Vtg Stencil series of fonts by astype are based on real world stencils. The UK No. 2 design was derived from authentic one inch A2 Roman stencil plates from Great Britain, manufactured around the 1950s.