“The Auto Show” is the title of an early 1900s pieces of sheet music proving that America has had a fascination with cars since the earliest days of the automotive industry. The song sheet’s title was hand lettered in a casual Art Nouveau style which has been re-drawn digitally as Nouveau Auto JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions… and what’s better than a nouveau auto (a new car)?

Lettering Project JNL was based on one of the many templates made by the Wood-Regan Instrument Company (also known as Wrico). Their sign making kits allowed anyone using the templates, special ink pens and alignment guides to create professional looking lettering with a minimum of experience.

The collection of letterpress cuts included in Printers Helpers JNL offers a generous helping of billing and accounting helpers along with the usual assortment of pointing hands, stylized arrows, cartoon embellishments and other miscellaneous images.

A vintage booklet from the Japan Tourist Bureau entitled "How to See Matsushima and Environs" had the title hand lettered in the Art Deco style which is the basis for Travel Brochure JNL. For those who prefer a more traditional 'E', it is located on the broken bar keystroke.

Beat Poet JNL is a throwback to the late 50s and early 60s when Beatniks hung out at coffee houses to listen to poetry and folk songs and live the Bohemian lifestyle of the Pre-Hippie generation.

The 1965 film “Mirage” had its titles and credits hand lettered in a simple, thin sans serif with rounded corners and an overall square design. This is now available digitally as Office Work JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

For decades, cereal companies have included premiums [promotional gifts] inside their packages, printed on the cartons or to send for with a special coupon and redemption instructions. During the 1940s, Pep cereal [a long-discontinued Kellogg's brand] offered a series of water-applied decals within its boxes. Most likely made by the Meyercord Company (one of America's largest transfer decal manufacturers at the time), one decal in particular had an alphabet in gold letters with black outlines. (One can only presume the marketing strategy was to have kids bug their parents to buy more Pep cereal if the child needed more than one letter of the alphabet for his or her initials!) Those decal letters have inspired a digital version as the outline character font Toy Decals JNL, which is available in regular oblique, solid and solid oblique styles.

An Art Nouveau, hand lettering on a Good Housekeeping magazine cover from the 1920s inspired Monthly Issue JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. Prior to the 1940s, it was not unusual to find the covers of many popular magazines hand lettered with either their names and/or content information; often in different type styles.

Borders, embellishments, spot illustrations and a miscellany of other dingbats are gathered in Print Art JNL as another collective of nostalgic imagery for print and web projects.

Window Treatment JNL gives a classic thick-and-thin line treatment to the Art Deco design found in the monoline font Window Dressing JNL.

The 1963 German release poster for "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" features a creepy, sinister, hand-lettered type design that became the model for Creepy Events JNL, available in both regular and oblique versions.

Strong Stencil JNL derives its name from its visual appeal. Strong, rugged, all-purpose; this type design (modeled from a set of brass stencils) can take on the toughest type chores and deliver.

An ad promoting the 1919 silent film comedy “Back Stage” starring Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was hand lettered in a thick-and-thin sans style with Art Nouveau influences. This lettering is now available digitally as Picture Show JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Printy Things JNL gathers together another collection of dingbats, border elements, embellishments and other images from vintage source material.

Generic Sans JNL was modeled after “Condensed Blair” from the 1907 specimen book of the Inland Type Foundry, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The hand lettered title on sheet music for 1915's novelty song "Gasoline Gus and His Jitney Bus" by Byron Gay and Charley Brown offered up the lettering style which is now Nouveau Arts JNL.

Bike Decals JNL captures the fun and nostalgia of the 1950s and 1960s when kids all around the country ran to their local five and dime or hobby store to purchase water applied decals. The "cool" thing would be to customize your bike, little red wagon or anything that would be fair game with various racing symbols, weird space creatures or other unusual images. In this font, Jeff Levine has put his own spin on some of the classic designs of yesteryear, drawing from scratch some of the most popular of their day.

A hand-lettered title on a children's stencil book for sale in an online auction served as the basis for Rustic Stencil JNL. Reminiscent of classic wood type, this stencil design adds a Western-influenced flair to any typographic project.

Serif Nouveau JNL is a condensed type face based on the hand lettered title of a 1920s-era piece of sheet music for the song "Naturally".

The hand lettered actors’ credits on a title card from the 1937 film “Shall We Dance” served as the model for Formal Event JNL – an Art Deco sans serif font available in both regular and oblique versions.

Frantic Pace JNL is based on hand lettering found on the lid of a late 1950s or early 1960s edition of the Print Craft alphabet printing set once manufactured by the Superior Marking Equipment Company of Chicago. The free-form spurred serif lettering is fun and casual; giving the impression of movement or action.

Decorative, Display, Headline, Sans Serif, 1930s, Hand Lettered, Monoline, Retro, Vintage, Nostalgic, Stylized, Elegant Some beautiful and stylized Art Deco hand lettering found in the Jan. 6, 1934 issue of the British movie fan publication Picturegoer Weekly inspired Movie Palace JNL, which is now available in both regular and oblique versions. This monoline design adds a touch of elegance to any retro projects.

Prior to the advent of digital type, many architectural layouts, amateur print projects and a myriad of other lettering jobs were created by the use of routed plastic templates and ink pens. Plastic Template JNL was designed from just one strip of a multi-part template set and replicates the clean lines of the original design.

Sometimes lettering without any frills or formality gets a message across better than the use of fancier typefaces. The simple charm of the hand-lettered phrase "Safety Comes First" found on a vintage WPA (Works Progress Administration) poster served as the model for Basic Lettering JNL.

The design idea for Meter Room JNL comes from a vintage brass hand-cut stencil of the words "High Voltage". What makes this stencil font a bit different than others is the placement and angle of some of the "breaks" within the letters.

The lettering on the cover of the sheet music for 1919's "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise" was set in a decorative sans serif with an engraved line adorning each character. Reminiscent of the headlines of legal documents, way bills, stock certificates and the like, the digital version of the design was given the name Legal Eagle JNL and is available in both regular and oblique versions. A companion font without the engraved lines is also available as Junior Clerk JNL.

A retro delight for the holiday season is Xmas Stencils JNL, assembled from original 1950s holiday stencils and other sources. Twenty-Six designs offer a generous variety of embellishments for all of your seasonal projects.

Trade Printer JNL is another font design inspired by an old rubber stamp sign printing set. In this case, the lettering has a classic "wood type" look, reminiscent of the letterheads, billheads and fliers made by local printers of the 1880s-1920s.

Inspired by an image of some Art Nouveau wood type spotted online, Nouveau Impression JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Quick Response JNL is a technology-inspired set of novelty letters (A to Z only) emulating the digital "quick response codes" used for storing data retrievable by today's smart phones.

Letterpress Extras JNL gathers more re-drawn images from the rich trove of vintage letterpress cuts. There's plenty of pointing hands and decorative ornaments, a few cartoons and some assorted miscellany. Also included are images of dip pen nibs from an old catalog and a decorative border set. To access the pen points, use the shift key and type any numeral key.

The American Sign Museum in Cincinnati houses an amazing collection of vintage signage from all kinds of sources and covering many eras of retail advertising. Someone visiting the museum posted online an image of one particular piece of glass with hand lettering saying “gold leaf” in a bold Art Deco stencil style. Etched Stencil JNL was inspired by that image and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Browsing online auctions and other webs sites often unearths wonderful examples of lettering from the past. A perfect example is Ritz Stencil JNL, modeled after a page from a 1930s-era lettering book. Although this font has similar characteristics to other better-known designs, there are enough unique differences to let it stand on its own as a great example of the Art Deco era.

The addition of serifs to an existing typeface can drastically change the look and feel of a design. Sign Card JNL and its oblique version is just such a treatment of Sign Shop JNL. By adding the serifs, there is not only a brand-new Art Deco typeface possessing a regal and formal style, but a distant resemblance to a Russian Cyrillic font with its mechanical form and function.

Printers Lot JNL is another eclectic mix of cartoons, ornaments, catch words, decorations and embellishments re-drawn from vintage source material used in the days of letterpress printing. For those who like to assemble their own larger borders, a set of elements is on the 2-9 keystrokes, but it must be noted that some manual adjustment is necessary to line up all of the parts in a complete border pattern. From a Happy New Year greeting to whimsical cartoon characters; from singular ornamental design elements to beautiful brackets, this mix of subjects is a great overview of the kinds of cuts found in printers' job case drawers in years gone by.

Similar to date and numbering stamps, there once was manufactured rotary band stamps with different letter and number configurations that were used for various identification purposes. From a set of vintage bands acquired from a now-closed rubber stamp shop, Marking Device JNL replicates the serif typeface used on these devices.

Sheet music for the song "I'm the One That Loves You" has the title hand lettered in a narrow, Art Deco-influenced sans serif, which is now available digitally as Dance Band JNL in both regular and oblique versions. The 1937 composition was popularized by Tommy Dorsey and Sammy Kaye.

The type design which inspired Stencil Maker JNL comes from a 1920s-era machine used in movie theaters of the day. It rendered tiny punched out letters (some characters solid and some in stencil form), enabling the user to make projection slides of important messages or general notices for the theater audience to read.

The unusual hand lettering found on a piece of 1940s sheet music forms the basis for Pencil Pusher JNL.

Double Bill JNL gets its inspiration from the promotional movie trailer for 1938's gangster comedy "A Slight Case of Murder" starring Edward G. Robinson.