Love songs are the perennials of music, outlasting all other popular fads and styles that come and go. The 1920s through the 1940s is considered by some to be the Golden Age of the American love song. Thousands upon thousands of copies of popular sheet music sold, and the cover lettering and art on many titles were from some of the finest illustrators of their time. Love Song JNL recreates the Art Deco-flavored design found on one such piece of sheet music from the 1930s.

Crepe Paper JNL is an alphabet-only novelty font that creates a wavy ribbon headline with a vintage wood type alphabet that somewhat resembles an unfurled stretch of crepe paper. The upper case A-Z keys will produce a white ribbon banner with black letters, while the lower case a-z keys are white letters on a black background. The end caps for the white banner are on the left and right parenthesis keys, while the end caps for the black banner are on the bracket keys. A blank space is located on the period key for the white banner and on the comma key for the black banner. This will allow for a continuous text banner without an open break due to using the space key.

Deco Template JNL is a font made from the inline portion of Stationer JNL, which itself was based on the hand lettered 1938 sheet music title for the official Coast Guard Marching Song "Semper Paratus" "(Always Ready)". Resembling a drafting template with a square, modular look, this type design is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A cardboard stencil toy for children from the late 1950's or early 1960's was the inspiration for Study Hall JNL, part of a series of stencil revival fonts from Jeff Levine.

An old rubber stamp printing set called the Aristocrat Sign Marker was the inspiration for this font from Jeff Levine. The letter shapes are truly reminiscent of the 1920s and early 30s with their casual playfulness, hence the font's name of Casual Friday JNL. To add a more nostalgic touch, the characters show slight imperfection of shape, as if hand-lettered.

Fort Courage JNL is a bold slab serif wood type in the French Clarendon genre, taking its name as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the cavalry fort populated by a number of post-Civil War misfits in the 1960s television comedy "F Troop".

Hand lettering on the packaging for an Arrow "Commander" Staple Remover seen in an online auction is the inspiration for the unusual and angular typeface comprising Staple Remover JNL. The Art Deco era of the 1930s and 1940s offers many wonderful examples of stylized and experimental lettering, and this, by far is one of the more eclectic styles of the time.

The hand lettered title for the 1890s book called “The Octopus” featured extra bold Art Nouveau lettering with rounded serifs. This is now available as Headline Nouveau JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

The beautiful Art Deco monoline pen lettering on the cover of a 1940s piece of sheet music inspired Central Park JNL. The 1940s was an era when couples took romantic walks along the pathways of Manhattan's Central Park or rode around it in hansom cabs. Big bands played at the major clubs and ballrooms and "uptown" meant the well-to-do. Men dressed in their tuxedos and top hats and the ladies were in their jewels and evening gowns.

Comic Opera JNL (and its oblique version) is a wide, bold sans serif type design with an Art Deco influence based on a 1930s namesake poster from the WPA (Works Progress Administration) advertising a performance put on by the Federal Music Project.

In the days when sheet music was as popular as phonograph records for home entertainment, a song album was a folio of collected works. The hand-lettering on the 1940s-era cover for "The Sigmund Romberg Song Album, Book II" served as the model for Song Album JNL. Romberg was a noted composer of Broadway show tunes.

Grist Mill JNL was modeled from an old wood type design and has all of the wonderful quirks that made wood type so appealing for many projects. There is minimal kerning because of the unique letter shapes, so you may wish to adjust your layout to fit your needs.

An ad found within the pages of the Sept. 7, 1939 issue of Motion Picture Daily for "The Man They Could Not Hang" had the film's title hand lettered in a slightly stylized bold sans serif design. This is now available as Criminal Trial JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

National Parks JNL was based on a 1930s WPA (Works Progress Administration) poster where the word "National Parks" was hand lettered in an unusual and eclectic Art Deco style. Bold and non-conformist, the typeface is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Table Fortu JNL is a revival of an Art Deco font that has all the classic nuances of the period. Re-drawn from scratch by Jeff Levine, it contains additional characters and accents not found in the original.

An ad for the annual Variety Club Convention appeared in the March 18, 1940 issue of "The Film Daily. The main headline was hand lettered in a classic Art Deco "solid" style of sans serif - ultra bold and with no counters - but had one additional feature: 'engraved' lines to the left of each character. This has now been expanded into the digital typeface Trade Convention JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. Variety Clubs (now know as Variety - The Children's Charity) was founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1928 by entertainers specifically to aid children. Their history can be found at https://variety.org/who-we-are/history

Hand lettering used on the packaging of a space-themed rubber stamp toy set is the basis for Space Deco JNL. Blending the classic thick-and-thin line weights of the Art Deco style with sharply angled cross strokes evoked a sense of movement and "future" in this unique lettering design.

Mixed Messages JNL brings back a favorite old theme... mixing up various letters and numbers from different fonts to create a printed message that resembles a ransom note or a collage of type with many styles of lettering.

Samples of vintage machine-punched stencils used for marking crates and cartons were spotted in an online auction. These served as the basis for Industrial Stencil JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Letterpress Assistants JNL once again combines a choice of cartoons, embellishments, ornaments and sales helpers (all redrawn from vintage source material) into one handy digital font.

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.

Nottingham Stencil JNL and its companion oblique version are the third set of fonts modeled from vintage lettering stencils made in England. These designs join British Stencil JNL and Trafalgar Stencil JNL in Jeff Levine's large library of stencil-themed typefaces.

Stencil Sheet JNL was modeled from an antique brass stencil sign that was custom hand punched for the customer. Sets of punch dies were available for years that allowed rubber stamp shops and similar trades to make custom stencils out of sheets of zinc or brass.

Eckhardt Sans JNL continues Jeff Levine’s “mini series” of fonts modeled after hand-lettering used by sign painters; and named after his good friend, the late Al Eckhardt of Allied Signs in Miami, Florida. Clean and somewhat condensed, this sans face has chiseled edges on many characters and the warmth of the lettering once made by brush or ink pen. Use this font in conjunction with any casual typeface to invoke the days of sign shops and talented lettering artists.

An example from the vintage lettering book "100 Alphabets Publicitaire" ("100 Advertising Alphabets") provided the inspiration for French Lettering JNL. This stylized Victorian [or Western] type face evokes the era of fanciful lettering design from the late 1800s. Available in both regular and oblique versions.

The 1915 sheet music for the tune "Dancing the Jelly Roll Song" by Nat Vincent and Herman Paley featured the title hand-lettered in a sans serif design strongly influenced by the Art Nouveau movement of the early 20th Century. This formed the basis for Jazzy Roll JNL.

Boot Camp JNL has the same roots as Jeff Levine's Condensed Stencil JNL, as they were both modeled from a set of vintage brass interlocking stencils made by the Stafford Manufacturing Company. The previous font was drawn from limited examples of the stencils seen in an online photograph, so a number of the basic characters had to be improvised. Since then, a nearly complete set was obtained and the alphabet and numerals are truer to the original design. Additionally, both Regular and Oblique versions of Boot Camp JNL are available.

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.

Looking similar to a Deco-era classic typeface, Van Alt JNL has slightly different character shapes, but pays due respect to its inspiration by the original...

Drawing Tablet JNL was created based on those two words hand-lettered on the cover of a sketch pad from the late 40s - early 50s. It is reminiscent of the popular Deco typefaces of the time.

Nouveau Eccentrique JNL is a novelty Art Nouveau lettering style found on some 1920s sheet music cheerfully entitled "I'm Glad I Can Make You Cry".

Eckhardt Fancy JNL was named in honor of Al Eckhardt (1929-2005), a talented sign painter and good friend of font designer Jeff Levine. The design was inspired by a vintage alphabet found within a collection of decorative display alphabets from the type collection of the late Dan X. Solo.

Sheet music for the song "Beyond the Blue Horizon" from the motion picture "Monte Carlo" had the movie title in hand-lettering reminiscent of the Futura Black style, but with an inline stripe through each character. These few letter examples were the basis for Gambling Resort JNL and conjure up the Nouveau Riche spending their nights in Monte Carlo packing the roulette wheels, blackjack tables and slot machines.

One of the charming features of vintage wood type is the unusual interplay of stroke widths or letter shapes that can vary from character to character. In today's world of digital perfection, a set of letters, numbers and punctuation marks must conform to rigid standards of uniform lines, balanced curves and other form-and-function rules that has often removed the human feel from the overall type design. While this is fine when applied to most text fonts and some modern display faces, Old Wood JNL is a simple throwback to an earlier time when type design was an artistic, not engineering endeavor. Modeled in part from vintage source material, this wood type design retains that charming imperfection of a time long passed.

Sometimes a font idea can come from the most unlikely place. While watching a DVD of the 1950's TV Sitcom "My Little Margie", Jeff Levine spotted some unusual deco-styled numbers on the floor indicator of the apartment house elevator. Expanding this into a full character set, Desk Clerk JNL is the result.

In a specimen book from Stevens, Shanks & Sons, Ltd. of London (circa1930s) “Royal Gothic” was their version of a classic grotesk sans that had been in use as far back as 1899 when the Keystone Foundry called it “Charter Oak”. The terms "gothic" and "grotesk" were equally applied to early sans serif typefaces – at first not well embraced by printers as being too ugly (grotesque) for use. One familiar characteristic of early grotesk fonts (such as this one) is the numerous variations of character widths and shapes. By combining those two terms into a font name, the digital version of this design is called Gothic Grotesk JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The playful, casual hand lettering on the 1941 movie poster for “Blondie Goes Latin” inspired Latin Fiesta JNL which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Morning Paper JNL is part of a small series of fonts re-drawn from screen captures of original vintage newspaper headlines. The typefaces are classic wood and metal faces that were popular in all forms of print of the time. This sans is a companion to Final Edition JNL and Evening Paper JNL.

In the days of hand lettering, a common philosophy was "the problem creates the solution". Often times the layout artist would have to adapt the lettering style to fit the amount of copy on a line. A perfect example is during the early 1900s, when popular sheet music of the time almost seemed to be competing for how many words could be used within a song's a title. One such piece of sheet music offered up the tall, condensed and variable-width lettering found within Narrow Minded JNL.

Nobody Home JNL is unusual in nature as it combines two vintage typestyles into one font. Both have been used for home and property identification for decades and still remain popular. Over the years the letters and numbers have been made of cast steel, aluminum, brass and plastic. The alphabet is in a distinctly bold, asymmetrical style, while the numbers almost take on a calligraphic feel. There is just a basic character set - alphabet, numerals and simple punctuation. While the font has been reasonably spaced and kerned, it's best to remember that neither type design was made with digital technology in mind, so it's suggested to adjust your layout manually for optimum results. Nobody Home JNL is best-suited for replicating street addresses, apartment numbers on doors, and homeowner (or apartment house) names on buildings - whether in print design or as plotter-cut vinyl graphics.