In the 1960s it was a popular trend to personalize one’s possessions with your initials. From wallets and handbags to eyeglasses; from luggage to even cars, initial personalization was the fad of the time. The British division of Gulf Oil offered for sale a set of gold metallic stick-on initials for 25 pence, complete with two Gulf logos so the company could get some extra advertising mileage out of the promotion. These extra-wide, bold initials served as the idea model for Personalization JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

ITC Matisse was designed by Gregory Gray while he was designing an editorial layout for Madame Figaro, a supplement to the Paris newspaper Figaro. While working on a feature on the work of Henri Matisse, Gray created a typeface with paper and an X-Acto knife, and then scanned the cutouts into a computer. The style of the design comes in part from Gray's passion for African art, with its contrasts between flat areas and protruding surfaces. ITC Matisse is ideal for offbeat display applications and initial capitals.

Decorative, Display, Headline, Serif, 1920s, Hand Lettered, Engraved, Incised, Bold, Extra Bold, Retro, Vintage, Nostalgic An ad in the July 27, 1928 issue of The Film Daily for FBO Pictures was an encouragement to all theaters to accept the emergence of 'talking pictures' and "Don't be Panicked by Sound". The headline text was hand lettered in an extra bold serif type face with engraved [incised] lines. The lettering has been redrawn as the digital type face Movie Usher JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A book in the library of University of Wisconsin caught David Berlow’s attention. It was set in a clear text face - a predecessor of Bookman, cast by the Western Type Foundry who called it Custer. Upon noting how well the typeface worked in 6 and 7 points, he developed it into a member of the Reading Edge series specifically designed for small text on screen. Custer RE was a broad and approachable typeface drawn large on the body with a tall x-height to maximize its size when set very small.

The inspiration for Deco Eccentrique JNL was initially hand drawn contoured lettering from a mid-1920s piece of sheet music; the style of the letters showing influences of the upcoming Art Deco movement. This was made into a digital font entitled Poster Contoured JNL. Once all of the excess parts of the previous design were stripped away to only the inner letters, the pre-Art Deco influences remained along with characters of varying stroke widths and shapes. This non-conformist type face is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Ingone is a slightly irregular sans-serif face. It was designed to complement PattyDay and HeyPumpkin, but can be used alone if you need an informal, friendly sans-serif font. It has only one weight, but the family includes a shadowed style. In 2018 the inside of the shadowed version was separated out and made a separate typeface. The letters have the shapes of the regular version but the spacing of the shadowed version and can be layered with the shadowed version to easily produce lettering with two colors.

Sanitation JNL is a bold Art Deco sans design inspired by some stylized hand lettering on a 1930s-era WPA (Works Progress Administration) poster and is available in both regular and oblique versions. The topic of the poster was "Your home is not complete without a sanitary unit" and that was recommended by the State Department of Public Health. A "sanitary unit" is the formal name for what rural folks called an "outhouse", and it's presumed the target group were homeowners not hooked up to major sewer lines such as in those rural areas.

Graphite was designed by David Siegel, who began thinking about the typeface in 1982, looking for an architect's handwriting with a chiselled pencil" look. The handwriting of San Francisco architect Anthony Celis LaRosa became Siegel's choice. With the assistance of David Berlow and Tom Rickner, Graphite was designed and released as a multiple master typeface with weight and width axes that allow for its use in a dynamic range from light condensed to black extended. Graphite is an upright script with simple lines, and is usable in a large variety of informal copysetting situations."

Appleyard is a transitional serif font family that combines the elements of a modern serif and old-style typefaces. It is loosely based on an old Monotype design called ‘Prumyslava.’ Appleyard was designed by A. Pat Hickson (P&P Hickson) exclusively for the Red Rooster Collection and produced by Steve Jackaman (ITF) in 1992. The typeface’s rounded serifs give it a sophisticated, warm, and friendly feel; it excels in projects that need a delicate touch. Appleyard was designed with legibility in mind, and is ideal in children’s books and for young readers.

When I was painting this font, I suddenly had the movie Cool Runnings (1993, directed by Jon Turteltaub) in my head. I had to name the font, so I came up with Smooth Brushings. Of course, this font has nothing to do with the movie. Smooth Brushings is an all caps brush font, which was made with a stiff brush and some China Ink. Upper and lower case glyphs can be mixed. It is a very legible and clear font, ideally suited for posters, product packaging and book covers.

PT Petroglyph™ was designed by Ekaterina Kulagina and licensed by ParaType in 2002. The type was created on the basis of petroglyphs (rock-carvings) that are known in 77 countries. They remained in a form of geometrical drawings in the caves of North Spain and France. Scientists claim that the radial spread-out of circles or center-pointed circles that are usually depicted show the development of solar symbolism at that period of time. We know for sure that such mysterious signs as drawings carved on rocks already existed 40 centuries ago.

On the Town JNL is a reworking of Parks Department JNL, giving it a classic "solid black Art Deco treatment". The wide monoline font of the original design was inspired by hand lettering on a WPA (Works Progress Administration) poster. Art Deco typography and the streamlined style it embraced often conjures up images of New York City in the 1930s and 1940s, thus On the Town JNL is named for the classic MGM musical starry Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munchen that was filmed on location in "the city that never sleeps".

The Sonica font family represents a modern typeface that is designed the express fluidity of motion. Sonica is the second font designed by the Sonic Savior team, and was specifically build for the group's website. The first font by the hand of this design team was Antediluvian, which consists of solid and down-to-earth glyphs - unearthed in fact, from ancient history. Sonica on the other hand is designed with a most volatile and dynamic geometry. If Antediluvian would be the alchemical Salt, Sonica would be its Mercury.

Claremont is a serif font family designed by Les Usherwood (Typsettra). Usherwood originally created four weights – a light, extra bold, light italic, and extra bold italic. Paul Hickson (P&P Hickson) and Steve Jackaman (ITF) digitized the family and created eight new weights, and it was released exclusively for the Red Rooster Collection in 1993. Claremont shares similarities to Bookman Old Style, but also shares properties with slab serif Egyptian-style typefaces. Like all Usherwood typefaces, the family was engineered with great care for maximum legibility and aesthetics. ©1993. International TypeFounders, Inc.

Bertram Plain is the perfect font for setting titles in comic strips and similar designs. UK designer Martin Wait created this font 1991, after he was inspired by the casual style of circus graphics. In fact, this jolly and lighthearted font was even named after one circus in particular: the Bertram Mills Circus. Bertram Plain is an all-caps font, with capital letters placed on both the upper and lowercase keyboard strokes. Additionally, Bertram Plain letters sport a 3D-like drop shadow, a distinctive feature when comparing this to many other display fonts.

In Lewis F. Day’s 1910 classic, Alphabets Old and New, the author presented the inspiration for this typeface as an example of German monumental lettering, most likely to suggest not that the typeface was really big, but that it had been found on German monuments. Bold yet charming, the face takes its name from a picturesque village in the Bavarian Alps which was the ancestral home of the Gröbl line of Curtii forebears. Both versions of this font include the complete Latin 1252 and CE 1250 character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

New Alphabet was created as a four weight family in close collaboration with Wim Crouwel. His response in the late 1960s to the first device for electronic typesetting was a radical experiment designed to follow the underlying dot-matrix system. With his strong interest in grids, Crouwel worked within the constraints of existing electronic technology, to produce characters that worked with the mechanical means that conveyed them. His original New Alphabet experiments have now been further developed by The Foundry into a typeface family that also includes the dot version.

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.

A heavy blackletter; Rudolf Koch’s first type from 1909. On an old page full of type specimen from the 1930s, the type is described as ”Schwabacher (used by the Deutsche Reichsbahn [German Imperial Railway]).“ As a matter of fact, it is the first print of the Offenbach script master Rudolf Koch, who came out with this typeface in 1909. At that time, it was given the name ”Neudeutsch“ (New German). Later, it became very popular under the name Koch-Schrift, and was at times the official typeface of the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Imperial Railway).

This sleek, high contrast typeface means business, but it looks great on any project, no matter how big or small. Solitas Contrast was developed because existing high contrast sans options were neither modern nor crisp. This design challenge was solved through a series of typefaces: the original low-contrast Solitas, its serifed cousins, and now a high contrast sans—each carefully considered for an organic and free flowing look. It evokes a Dutch or european feel. Solitas Contrast is a modern, clean sans-serif with a distinctive style and impact.

JY Ætna was designed originally by Francesco Griffo in 1495, and appeared in a book by Cardinal Bembo the following year. The typeface was re-created by Jack Yan in 1994, in time for its 500th anniversary. The original x-heights, quaint letters and other niceties have been restored. An italic complement, based on the design by Giovantonio Tagliente, has also been developed. JY Ætna has been one of JY&A Fonts’ more popular families over the years, with some typographers preferring its taller ascenders and descenders for headline work.

Samuel Welo’s “Studio Handbook for Artists and Advertisers” contained dozens of hand-lettered alphabets used as inspiration for both the sign trade and for graphic designers. Intertitle Nouveau JNL – available in both regular and oblique versions – was originally an alphabet produced by a round lettering nib, and was first shown in the 1927 edition (later reprinted in the 1960 edition). It is reminiscent of the lettering used on intertitle cards of the silent film era. This font marks an amazing milestone - the 2000th release by Jeff Levine Fonts since its inception in January of 2006.

Motley Crew is my last font for 2016. It is quite a lively, quirky and a little bit scary typeface, which will give your designs a little more ‘joie de vivre’. It was made with a soft brush and Chinese ink. The splatter was added after I had painted the glyphs. I forgot to put away my laptop, which now looks like this font… Motley Crew wishes you all the best for the coming year - in a lot of languages, as it comes with a generous splatter of diacritics.

In 1995, FontHaus came upon a rare opportunity to create a revival of Aries, a little known and previously unavailable typeface designed by the legendary Eric Gill in 1931. Discovering a lost typeface by one of the major designers of the 20th Century, was the discovery of a buried treasure, and being the first type company to release it in a digital format was an honor. Aries® is now in the fonts catalog of GroupType who owns the the registered trademark and has licensed this historical typeface exclusively to FontHaus as distributor.

Shareb font was initially designed with a different style compared to other Arabic typefaces. It was released as a free display typeface and went popular. Therefore, we decided to take it to the next level. Accordingly, we worked on the Arabic letters again, enhancing and fixing them. We also added new features like stylistic sets, ligatures, and a complete Latin set of letters so that the font can be used in the most needed languages. Now, we have a more professional, refined, and larger display typeface that can be used in more great projects.

This family was created -- inspired from the engraved typeface (Two styles : Normal & Italic) used in the pack of 52 playing cards who was describing the 52 counties forming a small Atlas of England and Wales and depicting English roads for the first time, published by Sir Robert Morden in 1676. Our OTF and TTF versions are covering Western, Eastern and Central European languages (including Celtic), Baltic and Turkish, containing historical and standard ligatures plus specific Old English abbreviations. The MacTT Classic version is containing the basic standard 256 glyphs including some extra ligatures.

In 1995, FontHaus came upon a rare opportunity to create a revival of Aries, a little known and previously unavailable typeface designed by the legendary Eric Gill in 1931. Discovering a lost typeface by one of the major designers of the 20th Century, was like the discovery of buried treasure, and being the first type company to release it in a digital format was an honor. Aries® is now in the fonts catalog of GroupType who owns the the registered trademark and has licensed this historical typeface to FontHaus as distributor.

Sistina, designed by Hermann Zapf in 1950 was first named Aurelia Titling. It is a heavy supplement to the Michelangelo Titling based on studies of inscriptions in Rome. First release in hotmetal at D. Stempel AG, Frankfurt in 1951. Sistina was originally an all caps font. The digital version from Linotype contains small caps. Hermann Zapf together with Akira Kobayashi, type director from Linotype had made a new revised version of Sistina now named as Palatino Imperial" in the Palatino nova type family, a Platinum Collection product from Linotype."

Baskerville Display PT is a type family intended for large and extra large point sizes. It was inspired by the faces of John Baskerville and designed for expressive display typography. Two weights of Baskerville Display with matching italics are much lighter than the existing text versions of Baskerville. Each of them is an ideal partner for ITC New Baskerville. A good addition to the family is Baskerville Poster which will look great in very large sizes. The font was designed by Arina Alaferdova under the supervision of Dmitry Kirsanov and released by ParaType in 2016.

Alghera Pro is a casual script font family.  It was digitally engineered in 1996 by Pat Hickson of P+P Hickson and Steve Jackaman of International TypeFounders, Inc. (ITF).  Jackaman revamped the family in 2017 and added wider language support to include Western, Central, and Eastern European languages. Alghera Pro has a hand-written, antique feel, and was inspired by an old label on a bottle of Portuguese wine.  As with all the Red Rooster “Pro” versions, the family contains a 40% larger glyph set and improved designs.

Lasting Impression JNL was rendered from scans of a 1930s rubber stamp printing set. At small sizes it has the look of hand-stamped lettering. At larger sizes, the user will see jagged and angular lines giving the font a kind of retro-grunge look. This typeface was the model for the more cleanly-drawn Casual Friday JNL, also by Jeff Levine. There is a limited character set, and both the spacing and kerning have been intentionally omitted so that the results will more closely resemble the uneven letter spacing of rubber stamps on paper.

Racetrack is the work of American type designer, Alex Kaczun, and was conceived as a result of developing a logo for a client. Alex was experimenting with a uniform grid pattern, outline and inline, connecting the dots which lead to this interesting typeface effect. Racetrack is a bold display font, which also works well at many point sizes. It has a futuristic appeal with straight lines and sharp corners. The uniform strokes, inline treatment and symmetry make for a powerful headline. The applications for this font design are endless.

Distill draws its inspiration mainly from Theo van Doesburg's De Stijl era lettering. The type he designed for the Aubette Café, De Stijl Magazine, etc was used as a starting point and then expanded upon. While this typeface was inspired by historical references, it also has the ability to invoke a contemporary feel under the right conditions. Distill will work hard whether you are designing a neo-constructivist poster or a futuristic website. Distill is a family of 12 fonts: 4 weights, each containing condensed, regular, and expanded widths. It also features several alternate characters.

New Letter Gothic was designed for ParaType by Gayaneh Bagdasaryan based on monospaced Letter Gothic font by Roger Roberson, 1956–62. Due to clear and easy-to-read lettershapes of Letter Gothic the font is rather popular now for display and advertising matters. The idea was to create a font similar to Letter Gothic in lettershapes but with proportional widths of letters. For use in both display and text setting. New Letter Gothic has been adjudged an Award for Excellence in Type Design at Kyrillitsa ’99 International Type Design competition in Moscow, 1999.

A set of self-adhesive poster board letters once made by the E-Z Letter Stencil Company and sold under the name "Quik Stik" was the model for School Project JNL. Ironically, the line was discontinued because they did not stick very well - the weight of the cardboard caused the letters (which used a rubber cement type of glue) to pull away from the surface they were mounted to. Unlike vinyl self-adhesive letters (which were formulated for indoor or outdoor use) these cardboard sets were relegated to indoors only; further restricting their usability.

Basim Marah is an Arabic display typeface and is useful for titles and graphic projects. The font is based on the simple lines of free style calligraphy. A collaborative effort, Basim Marah was designed and drawn by Basim Salem Al Mahdi from Iraq and then digitalized as a typeface by Hasan Abu Afash from Palestine. In November, 2008, Basim Marah was upgraded by working with Mirjam Somers an award-winning Arabic type designer to the DecoType font format for use in WinSoft Tasmeem which is now bundled with InDesign CS4.

Vododeo JNL is directly named for the free-form sheet music title lettering from Jack Yellen and Milton Ager's "Vo-Do-De-O". The term itself was a catchphrase made popular during the era known as the "Roaring 20s". Yellen and Ager were responsible for such hits as "Ain't She Sweet" (1927) and "Happy Days Are Here Again" (1930) along with countless others. During his career, Jack Yellen provided lyrics to over 200 songs. As a side note, Yellen was married to a distant cousin of type designer Jeff Levine's late mother.

Trained Monkey is a happy serif cartoon font. Use it for your book cover designs, posters, product packaging (may I suggest peanut butter?) and whatever else you may fancy. This monkey was made by hand, so the glyph edges are a bit rough and uneven - giving it ‘ye olde handmade look’. The name? Well, I was watching a movie (can’t remember which one) in which two guys were having a discussion. One of them said to the other: ‘a trained monkey could have done this job!’ That’s all folks.

KampIngriana was originally constructed in 1995-6. It was not constructed to meet any specific purpose but out of curiosity, to see what the result would be if two quite different faces were blended. KampIngriana is the offspring of Ingriana, a friendly, soft face, and KampFriendship, which mimics a serifed face drawn by hand. The original blending had many oddities that I did not clean up until 2020. It originally had five styles: regular, italic, bold, bolditalic, and extrabold. Medium, mediumitalic, semibold, semibolditalic, and extraboldItalic were added in 2022.

The Federal Art Project division of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) employed numerous artists, musicians, actors and other creative sorts in a effort to help many survive the Great Depression of the 1930s. One of the posters created by this project was for a "Card Party and Barter Benefit" with proceeds going toward the Nassau Art Teachers Benefit Fund - taking place at the Coca-Cola plant in Rockville Centre, New York. East Village JNL was derived from this poster, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.