Some years ago, a good friend and typophile, Gonzalo García Barcha, approached me with the idea of designing a typeface for his editorial project Blacamán Ediciones. He had just came across an hitherto unknown manuscript by Luis Lagarto, a colonial illuminator and scribe, working in Mexico City and Puebla in the late 1500s. The manuscript calligraphy was incredible and stunningly original. It featured three different hands by the scribe, intermingled in the text: a kind of baroque «Roman» roundhand; a very ornate, lively «Italic»; and some sort of irregular, playful, even funny «small caps». All imbued with an eccentric, convoluted zest and vivacious rhythm. Lagarto is the final result of translating these extraordinary hands into a digital type family. Since the manuscript had no numerals, math signs and many other characters now in use, part of the fun of the job was to infer them from the stylistic peculiarities of Luis Lagarto's calligraphy. Lagarto received an Award of Excellence at the Type Directors Club of New York annual competition.

This roly-poly romp through the alphabets is based on a showing from Carl Holmes' 1950s book, ABC of Lettering, published by art-for-the-masses magnate Walter T. Foster. Named as an apt companion to my East Coast Frolics.

Originally designed by Morris Fuller Benton for ATF in 1927, Sol Hess added a lower case in 1929. Hess also drew Broadway Engraved in 1928 for Lanston Monotype. Broadway has become somewhat of a classic icon as an "Art Deco" typeface.

Vala™ dances across printed pages and shines on screen. This is a high-energy design that blends the grace of an English Roundhand script with the gravitas of an extra bold Bodoni. There is even a bit of romance in the design. Vala speaks with a resonant voice – and knows few bounds. The typeface enhances print headlines, subheads, cover art and packaging. The design also brings its distinctive melding of verve and poise to banners, headings, navigational links and branding in web sites, blog posts, games and apps. Oscar Guerrero found inspiration for Vala in shop window lettering near his home in Bogotá, Colombia. “The capital A, R and V caught my attention and I photographed the window for future reference,” he explains. “Later I started to draw more letters inspired by the ones in the window.” Guerrero admits that he has always admired the work of Giambattista Bodoni and allowed his classic Didone designs to infuse Vala. Striking contrast in stroke weights, lively ball-terminals and a large x-height give Vala the grace and force of a Waikiki wave. Not satisfied with just a basic character set, Guerrero also took advantage of OpenType’s capabilities and drew a complete set of swash capitals, a bevy of fancy ligatures, and a suite of lowercase alternative designs. The result is that Vala easily emulates custom lettering in posters, headlines and logotypes. The “romantic” part of Vala? Guerrero dedicated the design to his girlfriend, Valentina, and named it after her.

Saga is a rather narrow typeface designed for a typeface competition arranged by a Scandinavian graphic arts magazine. It had to be based on ancient runic characters, that's the reason of some peculiar angular shapes. Saga is not att all a new runic typeface, but a usable one when the columns are narrow. The name is taken, of course, from the Nordic mythology. But saga" in the meaning of "story" contributed to the decision about the name. Saga was released in 1992.

For many type lovers, Broadway is the quintessential Art Deco typeface. Designed as an all-caps typeface in 1927 by Morris Fuller Benton for ATF, it was expanded two years later with a lower case designed by Sol Hess, who also drew the inline version, Broadway Engraved.

Based on the fin-de-siècle Helios Reklameschrift of the Klinkhardt foundry, Leipzig, Affiche preserves the beautiful art nouveau character of its hot-metal forerunner and was carefully extended to make it multilingual. For more historical authenticity, you can use the long s by typing [alt] and [b].

A display font with 700++ ligature, Hayabusha packs a full set of capitals, number and punctuation. Be it gigs, sport events, logo design or etc. Hayabusha was made to bring impact. Hayabusha features: AA AZ Ligature ZA ZZ Ligature ATA ETE and More ligature ATTA UTTU and More Ligature

Morris Fuller Benton's 1935 offering from ATF, entitled Raleigh Gothic Condensed, inspired this ultracompact masterpiece. Benton's alternate characters are included in several lowercase positions, to add a little Art Deco sparkle to this versatile workhorse. Both versions of this font include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets.

Manolo was a Ludwig & Mayer in-house design from the beginning of the 20th century. Though more formal than many others, the design keeps its Art Nouveau air. This beautiful font was completely redrawn and redesigned with giving the numerals more style. Two stippled border elements were added which you can reach by typing [alt] + P and [alt] + p. Like most fonts of this era, RMU Manolo comes with a long s too. RMU Manolo encompasses most European languages, Central and West, plus Turkish.

Here's an Art Deco classic with a bit of an edge. This typeface is based on a somewhat less refined but more energetic version of Broadway, designed by Morris Fuller Benton for ATF in 1928, originally named Broadway Poster. Both versions of this font contain the complete Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

Based on the 1932 typeface Newport, designed by Willard T. Sniffin for ATF, this Art Deco standard packs a lot into multi-line heads and subheads due to its very short descenders, cleverly accomplished by “fudging the baseline” on the g, p, q, and y. All versions of this font include the Unicode 1250 Central European character set in addition to the standard Unicode 1252 Latin set.

The place for a family to be entertained by comedians, dancers, acrobats, animal acts, singers and just about any other acts that fit the bill at the time was the vaudeville theater. Prior to radio becoming the major source of entertainment for the American public, popular songs were introduced on the stages of these entertainment venues. One such song from 1916 with a World War I patriotic sentiment was "A Yankee Doodle Boy Is Good Enough for Me". The sheet music featured the title hand lettered in Art Nouveau style. This became the design source for Vaudevillian JNL, available in both regular and oblique versions.

Cover art for the 1933 sheet music of Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler's "Stormy Weather" (from the musical production "Cotton Club Parade") listed the cast of the show in a condensed hand lettered sans that typified the 1930s and the Art Deco era. This served as the inspiration for Uptown Review JNL; available in both regular and oblique versions. The Cotton Club was a whites-only night club which showcased black acts, and was originally located on 145th Street in Harlem from 1923 to 1935, then existed for a short time in the New York theater district from 1936 to 1940. After the Broadway incarnation of the club closed, its space was taken over by the Latin Quarter.

The Posterama™ typeface family contains 63 fonts and is a true journey through space and time. Designed by Jim Ford, each Posterama family contains 7 weights from Thin to Ultra Black, in 9 distinct families. What makes Posterama so unique and versatile are the eight alternative display families. By making use of a collection of alternative glyphs, Posterama sets an evocative flavor to visualize an entire century of futuristic reference points from art, architecture, poster design and science fiction into one family. Posterama Text is the base family. It has the most robust character set including upper and lowercase glyphs and pan-European language support (including Greek and Cyrillic). Note: all the other Posterama variants described below do not have lowercase letters or Greek and Cyrillic support. Posterama 1901 recalls the decoratively geometric style of Art Nouveau from the turn of the 20th century. Letterforms such as the slender, snaking ‘S’, the high-waisted ‘E’ and the underlined ‘O’ revive the spirit of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the designers of the Viennese Secession. Posterama 1913 pays homage to the Armory Show, or 1913 Exhibition of Modern Art, which brought the revolutionary work of European artists such as Picasso, Duchamp and Kandinsky to the US for the first time to the shock and astonishment of press and public. Near-abstract, angular characters such as the ‘A’, ‘E’ and ‘N’ hint at cubism’s jagged and clashing planes. Posterama 1919 uses a small, but important, variation to set a tone when the Bauhaus was founded, and the surge in radical European typography that followed. The straight-sided, roundheaded ‘A’ adds a flavor of 1919 – this style of ‘A’ can still be seen in the Braun logo, designed in 1934. Posterama 1927 captures the year of Metropolis, The Jazz Singer and Paul Renner’s pioneering, geometric Futura typeface from 1927, which had a profound influence on design in the US and Europe. Posterama 1933 – With its low-waisted, sinuous designs, the Posterama 1933 typeface family echoes lettering of the Art Deco period, which in turn had its roots in Art Nouveau, the key influence on Posterama 1901. The two fonts make a great team and can be used interchangeably. Posterama 1945 features a few Cyrillic characters to conjure up an era when Russian art and political posters made their mark in cold war propaganda, espionage and also giant aliens and monsters. Posterama 1984 takes its typographic influences from George Orwell’s classic novel, publicity for the dystopian action and sci-fi movies (Blade Runner, Videodrome and Terminator) and games like Space Invaders and Pac-Man that made an impact at that time. Posterama 2001 was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s science fiction masterpiece, which made extensive use of the Futura typeface. Posterama 2001 finds its cosmic orbit with its nosecone-style ‘A’ from NASA’s much-missed ‘worm’ logotype. There’s an echo, too, in Bauhaus designs from as early as 1920, whose minimalist, geometric lettering also featured a crossbar-less ‘A’.