Shanghai JNL is loosely based on the title lettering from “Charlie Chan in Shanghai”, one of the long-running series of detective films featuring the Asian sleuth and his “number one son”.

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.

Vector is inspired by the 1979 Atari Asteroids video game UI screen font, yet it has been completely reworked to achieve a more balanced and refined visual aesthetic, loosely adhering to the original source. Letterform widths, angles, metrics and kerning are thorougly tweaked throughout in an effort to recreate a modern classic anew and extend it's functionality. Stylistically, Vector accurately reflects it's name, exuding a uniform sense of flatness and rectangular geometry defined by it's retro-modernist origins.

Father's Day, or June 17 of this year, is in the middle of Argentinian winter. And like people do on wintery Sunday mornings, I was bundled up in bed with too many covers, pillows and comforters. Feeling good and not thinking about anything in particular, Father's Day was nowhere in the vicinity of my mind. My eleven year old son, Matías, came into the room with a handmade present for me. Up to this point, my Father's Day gift history was nothing unusual. Books, socks, hand-painted wooden spoons, the kind of thing any father would expect from his pre-teen son. So you can understand when I say I was bracing myself to fake excitement at my son's present. But this Father's Day was special. I didn't have to fake excitement. I was in fact excited beyond my own belief. Matí's handmade present was a complete alphabet drawn on an A4 paper. Grungy, childish, and sweeter than a ton of honey. He'd spent days making it, three-dimensioning the letters, wiggle-shadowing them. Incredible. A common annoyance for graphic designers is explaining to people, even those close to them, what they do for a living. You have to somehow make it understandable that you are a visual communicator, not an artist. Part of the problem is the fact that "graphic designer" and "visual communicator" are just not in the dictionary of standard professions out there. If you're a plumber, you can wrap all the duties of your job with 3.5 words: I'm a plumber. If you're a graphic designer, no wrapper, 3.5 or 300 words, will ever cover it. I've spent many hours throughout the years explaining to my own family and friends what I do for a living, but most of them still come back and ask what it is exactly that I do for dough. When you're a type designer, that problem magnifies itself considerably. When someone asks you what you do for a living, you start looking for the nearest exit, but none of the ones you can find is any good. All the one-line descriptions are vague, and every single one of them queues a long, one-sided conversation that usually ends with someone getting too drunk listening, or too tired of talking. Now imagine being a type designer, with a curious eleven year old son. The kid is curious as to why daddy keeps writing huge letters on the computer screen. Let's go play some ball, dad. As soon as I finish working, son. He looks over my shoulder and sees a big twirly H on the screen. To him it looks like a game, like I'm not working. And I have to explain it to him again. This Father's Day, my son gave me the one present that tells me he finally understands what I do for a living. Perhaps he is even comfortable with it, or curious enough about that he wants to try it out himself. Either way, it was the happiest Father's Day I've ever had, and I'm prouder of my son than of everything else I've done in my life. This is Matí's font. I hope you find it useful.

As Word War I raged on during 1917, a large number of songs were written as morale builders for both the soldiers leaving for overseas service as well as their friends, family and loved ones. One such song, "Send Me Away with A Smile" has its title hand lettered in a simple, yet somewhat stylized sans serif design that was so much a part of the Art Nouveau style of that era. Simply Nouveau JNL captures and preserves that design within a digital typeface; available in both regular and oblique versions.

Made from a simple font incantation, the Invocation typeface was born. Inspired by an old Atari game called Necromancer where trees uprooted and came after the wizard, or something like that. The end result, a thematic typeface spawning roots. On darkened night, the moon eclipsed, a cryptic verse does pass my lips, from ancient parchment, edges worn, this Invoctation font is born... Sometimes we need an evil look for our designs, so why not summon this typeface into your hands today!

Schoolyard Blues JNL is based on the hand lettered title found on the sheet music for the 1938 song "I Was Late for School". A condensed sans serif with chamfered corners, it reflects the Art Deco influences of the day in some of the letter forms. This type design is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A 1970s Photolettering catalog indentified the pattern for this typeface as "Exotique" ...from France, no less. Named for a French expression meaning “pun,” this face is, indeed, witty and playful, with nary a groan in sight. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode 1252 Latin and Unicode 1250 Central European character sets.

Ride my bike Serif is a new version of successful handmade typeface Ride My Bike designed by Coto Mendoza. Inspired by street style and the new culture that moves pedaling around the city. Perfect for use in headlines, brands and fashion photography compose alternative, thanks to its leading characters, terminals, alternate characters and ligatures that you can find in the Pro version. This time with serif. The ‘Ornaments’ font in this family has 121 dingbats, very fun to compliment and accentuate the handmade design. If you do not want to ride so fast, you can find a version without OpenType features - Essential. Come! Get on it and let’s go ride my bike! Photography by Nico Alari.

The 1920s were part of an era in songwriting where snappy wordplay and clever (if not long) titles prevailed. The lettering on one such piece of sheet music with the song title "In A Shady Nook by A Babbling Brook" offered up a bold, condensed sans serif design which is now available digitally as Brookside JNL. Available in both regular and oblique versions.