In 1458, Charles VII sent the Frenchman Nicolas Jenson to learn the craft of movable type in Mainz, the city where Gutenberg was working. Jenson was supposed to return to France with his newly learned skills, but instead he traveled to Italy, as did other itinerant printers of the time. From 1468 on, he was in Venice, where he flourished as a punchcutter, printer and publisher. He was probably the first non-German printer of movable type, and he produced about 150 editions. Though his punches have vanished, his books have not, and those produced from about 1470 until his death in 1480 have served as a source of inspiration for type designers over centuries. His Roman type is often called the first true Roman." Notable in almost all Jensonian Romans is the angled crossbar on the lowercase e, which is known as the "Venetian Oldstyle e." Jenson Old Style™ was designed by Freda Sack and Colin Brignall for Letraset in 1982. Because of its darkness, this version is best used for display designs that call for a sense of old-world elegance and solidity."

Cotillion is an original design Jim Rimmer finished just before the turn of the century. Alongside its evidence of Jim's nostalgia at the deco type designs he was exposed to as a child, it distinctly shows a type designer who has become very comfortable with that rarest of design abilities: Bringing efficient typographic solutions to what is essentially a calligraphic endeavour. This design has all the elements of what made a traditional deco typeface display unmistakable elegance and luxury: The expressively low x-height, the precisely calculated upwards comfort and reserved grace of the vertical metrics, the subtle fusion of calligraphic ornamentation and clean minimalist type technique, and the unique indentity of the original lowercase flow. Cotillion was refined and remastered in 2012 to include a weath of aesthetic and functionality improvements. This Cotillion Pro set includes small caps, true italics, ligatures, seven types of figures, automatic fractions, extended Latin language support, stylistic alternates that include lowercase serif angle options, and plenty of extra OpenType features like caps-to-small-caps substitution, case-sensitive positioning, ordinals, and extended class-based kerning. At over 780 characters, each of the Cotillion Pro fonts is the equivalent of three fonts in one.

The birth of the monospaced types dates back to the past. There was a need for the creation of typesets for typewriters. The difficulty was to align the different glyphs in the same width. This led to particular problems with letters like “M” and “l”; the former seemed to be squeezed into the same width of all letters and the second one appeared way too streched. Despite – or perhaps because of – the impression of the typewriter is still popular with Graphic Designers. Nowadays there are even monospaced versions of primarily proportional types; for example the the Sans Mono designed by Lucas de Groot or the DIN Mono. Then again, why not the other way round?! In the first half of the Nineties, Erik Spiekermann developed a proportional type named ITC Officina based on the Letter Gothic. According to a survey on the 100 best fonts of all time conducted by FontShop, ITC Officina is in an eighth place, far ahead of its forerunner. This was the reason for me to create a wider design with a Serif and a Sans Serif based on the queen of all monospaced types – the Courier.

Gothico Antiqua is the result of grunging up one of my early sans-serif type designs. It strangely works very well and looks authentic at small to medium settings.

This font was inspired by the lettering on a shop sign along a very classy shopping street in Bordeaux, France. There were similar styles among mid-nineteenth century types.

Almibar is a delicate and very elegant connected script font. Its classic style is perfect to be applied in any type of formal pieces such invitations, labels and menus.

The design of type Meeneralca 4F was inspired by the logo of the mineral water Borjomi from Georgia. The word "Meeneralca" is the short (slang) version for "mineral water".

Handbill JNL takes the type design from Broadletter JNL and gives it an open drop shadow treatment to emulate a popular style of many wooden typefaces from the 1800s.

An inline version of the Latin bold condensed, and designed on the suggestion of Robert Harling. There is a double white line, which was originally engraved in Latin type.

Xylo Sans letterforms are based on a typeface from Miller & Richard type foundry, from circa 1911. They are presented here with a rough wood texture, in two xylographic flavors.

Gauntlet LGt is a geometric type, with a horizontal union of some of glyphs in the middle of the glyph, no lowercase, ideal for large holders, posters and banners.

Swing Band JNL is a casual, playful type design inspired by the title lettering from "Hi-De-Ho", a 1930s all-black cast film starring legendary bandleader Cab Calloway.

DOCK11 is a heavy headline typeface with an elegant look.  This typeface will work well for headings, short paragraphs, magazines, web, posters, logos and any type of graphic design.

A round was added to a neat straight line to express a soft sensibility. It is a neat and flexible font using a clean and stable type of module.

Carl Schraubstadter of the Inland Type Foundry probably had more to do with the design of this italic than he did with the roman. Great for Craftsman Era projects.

Concave Tuscan Extra Condensed is a classic wood type sans serif design that is the basis for Table Wood JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

We took a distressed-looking Victorian type called Cabinet and redesigned it with clean lines to make it more suitable for today's decorative work. Quite readable in all sizes.

Rock Wood is a fresh version of old western wood type. With its strong and sinuous lines it has a taste of vintage and modern at the same time.

Convicted JNL is a condensed, chamfered sans serif type design inspired by opening credits from the 1940 film of the same name – available in both regular and oblique versions.

I made this cartoon book font in my own handwriting. This type of font is great for writing comic stories, children's games, and is perfect for making cartoon movies.

A style example found within the pages of a vintage type foundry catalog inspired Case Lot JNL. The design is a classic early 20th Century sans with chamfered corners.

Claxon is reminiscent of the types from the 1920s Bauhaus movement. Designed with very short ascenders and descenders for tighter line spacing. Effective for short headlines and general use.

Blado is the italic companion to Monotype Poliphilus, revived in the 1920s by Stanley Morison based on a type cut by Ludovico degli Arrighi for Aldus Manutius, around 1526.

A revival of one of the popular wooden type fonts of the 19th century, a very useful design for display, or text, somewhat geometric in form, a bit narrow.

A crunchy comic font, suitable for both small and large typing. At small sizes the font appears as a "simple" handwriting font, but at larger points the crunchiness appears!

Madigan is a high-contrasted, crisp, and attractive typeface. While situated firmly in the category of ‘modern’ types, it appears fancy and lively, showing extravagant details in display sizes.

The Garamond family tree has many branches. There are probably more different typefaces bearing the name Garamond than the name of any other type designer. Not only did the punchcutter Claude Garamond set a standard for elegance and excellence in type founding in 16th-century Paris, but a successor, Jean Jannon, some eighty years later, cut typefaces inspired by Garamond that later came to bear Garamond’s name. Revivals of both designs have been popular and various over the course of the last 100 years. When ATF Garamond was designed in 1917, it was one of the first revivals of a truly classic typeface. Based on Jannon’s types, which had been preserved in the French Imprimerie Nationale as the “caractères de l’Université,” ATF Garamond brought distinctive elegance and liveliness to text type for books and display type for advertising. It was both the inspiration and the model for many of the later “Garamond” revivals, notably Linotype’s very popular Garamond No. 3. ATF Garamond was released ca. 1918, first in Roman and Italic, drawn by Morris Fuller Benton, the head of the American Type Founders design department. In 1922, Thomas M. Cleland designed a set of swash italics and ornaments for the typeface. The Bold and Bold Italic were released in 1920 and 1923, respectively. The new digital ATF Garamond expands upon this legacy, while bringing back some of the robustness of metal type and letterpress printing that is sometimes lost in digital adaptations. The graceful, almost lacy form of some of the letters is complemented by a solid, sturdy outline that holds up in text even at small sizes. The 18 fonts comprise three optical sizes (Subhead, Text, Micro) and three weights, including a new Medium weight that did not exist in metal. ATF Garamond also includes unusual alternates and swash characters from the original metal typeface. The character of ATF Garamond is lively, reflecting the spirit of the French Renaissance as interpreted in the 1920s. Its Roman has more verve than later old-style faces like Caslon, and its Italic is outright sprightly, yet remarkably readable.

Barbou was originally cut in 1925 by Monotype as a counterpart to Fournier, siblings that were different in design but both based on the work of Pierre-Simon Fournier. Whether by choice, accident or oversight, Fournier was preserved digitally, and Barbou was lost to history. Barbou was notably used by Stanley Morrison, in particular as the face of The Fleuron. I fell in love with Barbou when I saw it, and knew that I wanted to bring it to a new generation of designers and readers. This is a revival of Barbou, a faithful recutting with new weights, characters and many of the best features that modern font technology brings. Particular attention was paid to the original Monotype Barbou 178 specimen sheet. Originally only available in a single weight, Barbou has been recut with a variable weight, providing a large degree of flexibility between Regular and Bold. Barbou excels as a comfortable reading face for books, and the variable weight allows you to fine tune the darkness and texture of the page in a way never before possible. Barbou has a distinctive softness, and this revival of Barbou preserves much of the effect the medium of metal type had on the letterforms. This results in a subtly rounded yet defined type, elegant not worn, with the utmost attention and respect to the smallest of details. Barbou was originally cut with disparate x-heights for roman and italic, and this revival of Barbou features both the original italic, as well as a new italic redesigned at the same height as the roman. In Fournier’s time, roman and italic would not be mixed on the same line, but the type must change to meet the needs of a new generation. Barbou also features unique ligatures and alternates, old style numbers, small caps and a full Greek alphabet. Barbou is perfect for books and anywhere a comfortable reading face is required, and excels in flexibility.

Blackletter typefaces follow certain fixed rules, both in respect to their forms and to the orthography. Possibly, they were a reaction to the half-developed Carolingian minuscule which was soon to end in the Latin script. Narrow, ordered script was to replace the round, hesitant and shattered shapes of letters in order to simplify writing, to unify the meaning of individual letters, and to save some parchment, too. Opposed to the practice common in monasterial scriptoriums where Uncial, Irish and Carolingian inspiration flew freely and as a result, the styles of writing differed in each monastery, the blackletter type was to define one, common standard. It was to express spiritual verticality, in perfect tune with the architecture of the Gothic era. Typography became an integral part of the overall style of the period. The pointed arch and the blackletter type were the vanguard of the spectacular transformation from the Middle Ages towards the modern era, they were a celebration of a time when works of art were not signed by their makers yet. Some unfortunate souls keep linking blackletter solely with Germany and the Third Reich, while the truth is that its direct predecessor, the Gothic minuscule, evolved mostly in France. Even Hitler himself indicated blackletter type obsolete in the age of steel, iron and concrete – thus making a significant contribution to the spreading of the Latin script in Germany. Once we leave our prejudice aside, we find that the shapes of blackletter type have exceptional potential, unheard of in sans-serif letterforms. The lower case letters fit into an imaginary rectangle which is easily extended both upwards and sideways. In its scope and in the name itself, the Moyenage type family project is to celebrate the diversity of the Middle Ages. I begun realizing the urge to design my own blackletter when visiting the beer gardens of Munich and while walking through the villages of rural Austria. The letters from the notice boards of inns are scented with spring air, with the flowers of cudweed, with white sausage and weissbier. The crooked calligraphic hooks and beaks seem to imitate the hearty yodeling of local drinkers and the rustle of the giant skirts of girls who distribute the giant wreaths of beer jugs. Moyenage is, however, a modern replica of blackletter, so it contains some otherwise unacceptable Latin script elements in upper case. I chose these keeping the modern reader in mind, striving for better legibility. The font is drawn as if written with a flat pen or brush, and with the ambition to, perhaps, serve as a calligraphic model. In medium width, the face is surprisingly well legible; it is perfect for menus as well as posters and CD covers for some of the heavier kinds of music. It has five types of numerals and also a set of Cyrillic script, symbolising the lovelorn union of Germans and Russians in the 20th century. Thus, it is well suited for the setting of bilingual texts of the German classic literature, which, according to the ancient rules, must not be set in Latin script.

Sagebrush JNL was modeled from examples of a vintage French Clarendon wood type in which many of the characters had rounded parts rather than the traditional all-slab serif approach.