Used Cars JNL is based on one of the many unique alphabets created by the late Alf R. Becker for Signs of the Times magazine from the 1930s through the 1950s. Special thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media (who is also the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio) for providing the reference material for this design

The original source of design for Sign Sans JNL was an image online of an old New York drinking establishment called the Lenox Lounge. The metal channels encasing the neon had an unusual "feel" to some of the letters. While the original E,G and U of the sign looked "interesting", they didn't quite fit the font's layout. Those letters were scrapped for more traditional versions of them.

The hand lettered credits for the 1942 film comedy “I Married a Witch” were so unusual (with their mix of rounded and flat terminals and varying character shapes) that the only logical name for a digital revival would be So Unusual JNL… which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Eckhardt Freehand JNL is the fourth font based on the lettering of sign painters and show card writers. Jeff Levine has chosen to name this “mini series” of fonts in honor of his friend Albert Eckhardt, Jr., a talented sign man who ran Allied Signs [in Miami, Florida] from 1959 until his passing in 2005.

Narrow Stencil JNL is based on a set of 12 inch tall letter and number stencils, generally used for marking and identification.

Inspired by an old retail stencil lettering guide, Stenciled Message JNL is a bold Roman serif typeface available in both regular and oblique versions.

For decades, the soft glow of a neon sign beckoned weary travelers to roadside rest courts, told the hungry individual where to eat; let enthusiastic revelers know where the night life was happening. There is something special about a neon sign, yet changing times, city ordinances and even technology itself is turning this staple of urban life for over a hundred years into a museum piece. Night Sign JNL emulates the craft of hand-formed neon signage and it (along with a few added special effects) can really add some good-old-fashioned pizzazz to a print or web project.

The hand lettered pre-Deco style title and songwriters' credits on the cover of the sheet music for 1929s "The Love Parade" were the models for Deco Days JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

In its heyday, the Starlight Room of the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City quite frequently printed lunch and dinner menus for not only their rotating bill of fare, but also for special events held there. The 1937 Electrolux (Eastern) Appreciation Banquet has its own menu cover, and the lettering was in a simple, yet Art-Deco influenced condensed block design with squared features. This simple and quirky typeface has been digitally redrawn as Sales Convention JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Wood Clarendon JNL is based on Hamilton Clarendon Condensed (circa 1899) and is available in both regular and oblique versions. The design of this typeface retains many of the charming (but slight) design irregularities often found within pantograph-cut wood type from the 1800s through the early 1900s.

1920s-era sheet music for "Tangos Pour Manon" from Brussels, Belgium had the title hand lettered in an unusual style. The alphabet was square, had serifs and the thick-and-thin stroke weights that were more popular in the upcoming Art Deco years of the 1930s and 1940s. This became the working model for Torrid Tango JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Inspiration for font design takes on many shapes and forms. It can be vintage source material, visualized concepts or simply suggestions made by others. In an email conversation with Kevin Redekop (the Principal Designer for FabArts Creative Fabricators in Canada) who had purchased a number of Jeff Levine Fonts, a sample sketch of a desired stencil font was provided. This set the wheels into motion for the drawing and production of Saskatoon Stencil JNL.

A piece of vintage British sheet music from 1941 entitled “That Lovely Week-End” featured the song’s name in a bold Art Deco sans serif with rounded edges. This lettering design is now the digital type face Weekend Plans JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Monthly Calendar JNL is a companion font to Calendar Blocks JNL, and features classic wood type lettering and numerals from the 1800s. A set of large numbers are on their own keys, while the numbers 1-31 reside on the A-Z and a-e keys respectively. The days of the week are on the lower case “f” through “l” keys, while the names of the months are found on the “m” through “x” positions. An open rectangle is on the lower case “y” key, and a solid black rectangle is on the “z”. For those who wish to use the 23/30 and 24/31 configurations, they can be found on the left and right parenthesis.

In the 1943 Three Stooges comedy short “Higher than a Kite”, Curly reaches into a box with the label “hand grenades” painted on its side and pulls out one of the devices. The bold, squared stencil hand lettering on that prop inspired Stencil Label JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The movie poster for the 1937 film “Cafe Metropole” served as the basis for Outdoor Cafe JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. The extra bold, stylized letter forms with their rounded corners typify the wide variety of typographic styles the Art Deco period offered.

Artful Nouveau JNL was modeled from the hand lettering on the sheet music cover for the 1910 song "Gee, But It's Great to Meet a Friend from Your Home Town".

A 1929 German travel poster had the caption “Wer schlafwagen reist spart zdeit und geld” (“Whoever travels in a sleeping car saves time and money”) hand lettered in an Art Deco sans serif style. This is now available as Foreign Tourist JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

An old printer's advertising cut for Red Star Oil Stoves yielded a typeface that was both vintage and somewhat techno at the same time. Originally drawn as a slanted logo, the individual letters had an array of chamfered, angled and flat sides combined with a bold outline. This font is available in both vertical and oblique versions.

Kevin Curtis runs a site called Damosel's Printer's Blocks, specializing in rare an unusual examples from the years when letterpress was the main source of printed material. He graciously provided the source material for Print Damosel JNL. The collected images represent a varied cross-section of ornamentation, embellishments, attention getters, decorations and whimsical illustrations.

In the beginning of his typographic design work, Jeff Levine produced a large number of freeware dingbat fonts utilizing very rudimentary font creation software. Although popular in the world of home crafts, there were many issues inherent with those early font files. Jeff has chosen to clean up and update some of these fonts and make them commercially available. PLEASE NOTE: Refer to the license agreement regarding use of Jeff Levine's art-based fonts. Logos and derivative works made from these fonts are not allowed.

Take a classic Western wood type where the horizontals are thicker than the verticals and remove the slab serifs… The result is Western Sans JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Lettering on the sheet music cover for the title song from the 1957 Marlon Brando movie "Sayonara" was the model for Pacific Island JNL. The design has an Asiatic influence, but also reflects a bit of show card lettering as well. Available in both regular and oblique versions.

The cover title for “Private Detective” magazine (from October, 1942) was hand lettered in a stylized, extra bold Art Deco type design which is now available as Detective Case JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Mystery Writer JNL is based on the hand lettered title from the cover of a 1947 issue of “Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine”, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Railyard Stencil JNL is a stencil variant of Decal JNL that was set aside for a long time in a forgotten work folder. It's broad strokes and sharp serifs emulate the vintage look of old railway cars and other earlier forms of transportation.

A 1918 poster issued during World War I from the YWCA encouraged women to pitch in to the war effort by joining the “United War Work Campaign”. The Art Nouveau hand lettering of that poster was a slight throwback to the “Western” or “Victorian” style of typography because of the characters having split serifs. This is now available as Village Hall JNL, in both regular and oblique versions

In the 1960 edition of Samuel Welo’s “Studio Handbook for Artists and Advertisers” is an example of poster lettering with the accompanying blurb “call this Chrysler”. This casual brushstroke design was slightly modified and then reworked into what is now Show Poster JNL and is now available in both regular and oblique versions.

Lobby Card JNL takes the limited characters of Theatrics JNL, removes the prismatic effect and expands the font into an extended character set for a multitude of uses.

Hand lettering used in the trailer for the 1943 movie musical “Broadway Rhythm” was the inspiration for Show Tune JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Key Largo JNL is a serif treatment of the lettering found in Gummed Letters JNL.

Inspired by an image of a 1960s rock and roll concert poster for “The Beach Boys Summer Safari”, this typeface captures the casual, informal lettering of the main headline and makes it available digitally. Evoking sunny days of fast cars, pretty girls and riding the waves, the playfully hand lettered Summer Safari JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

In the 1930s the WPA (Works Progress Administration) was involved with getting a number of Americans back to work during the Great Depression. One faction of the WPA's efforts was the Federal Art Project. Thin, condensed hand lettering on a poster for an Art Exhibition at the New Bedford Free Public Library is the inspiration for Art Exhibit JNL.

The hand lettered, condensed stencil title on a movie poster for the 1950 film “Customs Agent” inspired both the digital typeface and the font’s name. Customs Agent JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

California Bound JNL is based on the hand lettering found on the side of the old California Zephyr passenger trains; the route now being a part of Amtrak. This somewhat unusual Art Deco design is more utilitarian than decorative, yet it still captures the "Streamline Era" perfectly.

Film Noir JNL is a classic Art Deco Alphabet from the brush of the late master sign painter Alf R. Becker, and appeared in Signs of the Times Magazine. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media and the American Sign Museum for providing the reference material to make this font.

In the October 31, 1920 edition of Wid's Daily (the predecessor to The Film Daily), a block of ad copy from a 1920 film called "Down Home" had the text printed in such a fluent pen-lettered style that a bit of a shortcut was used at the beginning of the design process for this typeface. Normally, font inspirations are redrawn [and not by simply using auto-trace] except under specialized circumstances like this one where that feature is a help, rather than a replacement for the creative process. The entire block of text copy was auto-traced, then the necessary letters were selected from the available wording and cleaned up to remove any sharp points and irregular curves in an effort to make the end results as close to the original and unusual hand-drawn text. From there the missing characters needed to produce a finished type font were created utilizing the standard methods of drawing and font construction. The end results turned out very well. Using the film's title as its namesake, this design is now available digitally as Down Home JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

The cover of a 1950s-era catalog for the Freedman Novelty Company (of San Francisco California) had the word "Novelty" hand-lettered in an unusually angular type style against various geometric shapes somewhat resembling balloons. While the lettering was quirky enough to warrant re-drawing as a digital font, the shapes would have presented a visual nightmare in design and spacing, so simple black rectangles were substituted and the letters appear in white. Since novelty lettering of this type would never become "standard" in use, its function became the font's name, Limited Appeal JNL. There is just a simple A-Z and 1-0 character set along with basic punctuation.

Hand-cut wooden letters belonging to a long-defunct salad bar's signage were offered for sale in an online auction. The casual look of the lettering, the hand crafted feel and the rounded ends made for the perfect inspiration for designing Salad Bar JNL.

In the 1889 Franklin Type Foundry specimen book is a type face called “Armenian”. With lighter weight horizontal slab serifs than more traditional Western fonts, it could be pictured as being used as copy on wanted posters or town notices. This is now available as TV Western JNL in both regular and oblique versions.