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 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.

Czech Stencil JNL was modeled from examples of a 1930s-era typeface from Czechoslovokia called "Patrona Grotesk" as seen in the Steven Heller-Louise Fili book "Stencil Type" (published by Thames and Hudson).

Basic Stencil JNL was inspired by a lettering stencil sold by Dymo around 1968 that featured a sans serif design with rounded corners and an overall square look to the characters. This bold stencil design is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A group of unique metal plates with stencil initials cut into them was spotted while browsing through online auctions for source material. What made these items even more interesting was how some of the stencil letters had been sectionally divided - not vertically or horizontally as in most stencils, but lines cut at angles. This is the basis for Steel Stencil JNL and Steel Stencil Oblique JNL.

Malaguena Stencil JNL was derived from hand lettering found on an Art Deco-era piece of vintage sheet music for this familiar tune. According to Wikipedia: “Malagueña is the feminine form of the Spanish language adjective malagueño/ malagueña, ‘pertaining to Málaga’, a Spanish port city.” Additionally: "Malagueña", is a song by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona; written in 1928 it was originally the sixth movement of Lecuona's Suite Andalucia, to which he added lyrics in Spanish. The song has since become a popular, jazz, marching band, and drum corps standard and has been provided with lyrics in several languages.

Favorite Stencil JNL is inspired by and modeled after the classic hot metal typeface "Ludlow Stencil"; a design that enjoyed popularity around the 1950s and is not to be confused with Ludlow's similarly-named "Stencil" which was released in 1937. Available in both regular and oblique versions.

A butterfly, plants, animals, borders, embellishments, a center piece and corner pieces make up this assortment of charming stencil designs re-drawn from vintage sources for Antique Stencils JNL.

An ad spotted in a 1964 issue of Billboard magazine with the words “STAND BACK…” introduced the first record album from then-new stand-up comedian Bill Cosby. The lettering of those two words was in a stencil sans serif design that was a perfect candidate for developing into a digital font. The end result is Advertising Stencil JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Kitchen Utensils is a pictorial font with 36 different common kitchen tools and appliances in the shape of the letters of the alphabet and numbers. Perfect for cooking and kitchen-related texts, recipes, and culinary publications.

An image of a vintage, hand-cut metal stencil with just a set of bold numerals inspired the design of Bold Metal Stencil JNL. The typeface is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The Vtg Stencil fonts from astype are based on real world stencils from several countries. All styles offering an extended Latin character set. » pdf specimen «

Narrow Roman Stencil JNL was modeled from a vintage brass sign for identification of a ballroom.

Antique Stencil Borders JNL collects twenty-six vintage border designs from various sources for complementing copy set in stencil lettering or in stand-alone decorative projects. NOTE: The purchase of this font does NOT include license to replicate the designs as commercial products for resale. To do so, a Derivative Products License must be obtained by contacting Jeff Levine. Contact information is found within the End User License Agreement.

The Vtg Stencil series of fonts from astype are based on real world stencils. The Germany No.1 design was derived from authentic antique German stencil-plates. » pdf specimen « Surprisingly these stencil-plates offer a high contrast Didot design very similar to the French stencils produced and sold till today. The production time of these stencils is in the range of the German imperial period (1871‒1918). Of course the usage period was even longer. The font styles PAINT and SKETCH include 4 additional variations of base glyphs and figures. An extensive random function will mix the glyphs as you type - on proper OpenType-savvy apps like Adobe InDesign only. All styles offer an extended Latin character set.

French Stencil Moderne JNL is modeled from an alphabet found in the 1930s publication "100 Alphabets Publicitaires" by M. Moullet, and is available in both regular and oblique versions. Strongly resembling the stencil motif of Futura Black, this French stencil alphabet has enough variations to give it a unique design flavor all its own.

Playing around with a previous design, Jeff Levine came up with Cut Paper Stencil JNL, a typeface with both an Art Deco flair and the look of letters made from cut paper.

An old ad for Cointreau Triple Sec Liquor featured a bolder variant of the lettering style found in a set of vintage tin stencils that were the model for French Stencil JNL. This is now available as Belle Epoque Stencil JNL, in both regular and oblique versions. “Belle Epoque” means “beautiful era” in French.

Albeit Grotesk Stencil Caps is a graphic geometric stencil-style all caps display font family of four weights (Light, Regular, Medium and Bold) with slightly exaggarated diacritics for better readability making it ideal for headlines.

Rail Route Stencil JNL is based on a hand-cut paper stencil depicting a logo for the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad. The lettering is from the motto encircling an image of the Capitol dome: "Linking 13 Great States with the Nation". This motto was not present on some other versions of the B&O logo.

Bold geometric shapes, softened with graceful finishes, characterize this jazz-age offering first proposed by lettering artist Eric Matthews. Best used as upper- and lowercase. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 Latin and Unicode 1250 Central European character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.