This handwritten font is the result of trying to write in a different way to what I'm used to: sometimes taking a left turn when going straight was the more obvious way. Or the other way around. The result was quite readable and it turned out that I could make surprisingly matching monographs with it.

Designed over three years after the second World War, and published in 1949 by the Nebiolo foundry, Normandia was Alessandro Butti’s take on the fat face. As it usually was with Butti’s designs, this face effectively injected a catchy yet expertly calculated calligraphic spin into its source of inspiration — which was the essentially geometric/deco, thicker model of Bodoni’s very popular aesthetic. The metal Normandia saw some widespread use for a handful of years after its publication, not least because of the multitude of sizes in which it was available. It stepped out of the limelight by the mid-1950s, due to a combination of the popularity of cold type and Nebiolo’s refusal to retool its faces for new technologies. It was copied by a few small film typesetting outfits on both sides of the Atlantic, but never really found its way back to the mainstream. By the time computer type became the norm, Normandia was pretty much relegated to a type historian’s collection of anecdotes. This digital update of the classic series revives and refines the three original metal designs (Tonda/Regular, Corsiva/Italic, and Contornata/Outline) and expands the character set to more than 600 glyphs per font, including small caps, six types of figures, fractions and nut fractions, a full set of f-ligatures, some stylistic alternates, and other fine typography niceties.

OnepunchJim got its name from the way it was created; every character was made in one 'punch'. Very suitable for kids stuff.

This typeface came out as a side idea while I was working on one logotype. Suddenly I came up with an idea of creating “tuned” version of the typeface, based on that logo. The “tuning” turned me in a completely different direction and in a few hours of haste I was looking at a completely different typeface. A few days later I made this font available for free, since it wasn't meant to be at all :-). A few months later, I saw my typeface used in the menu in one pizzeria. I was amazed and glad and happy and proud, all at the same time. Oh, by the way: the logo I was working on was of different style and even of another stem’s widths. So, this is truly a font of it’s own design. Naftalin has both Latin and Cyrillic sets, since it was used with both.

Devil Kalligraphy was performed by Argentina Lián Types in 2007. The shapes of each caracter have a strong personality. It was based on antique writings. Devil Kalligraphy was inspirated in calligraphy styles. Gothic and Uncial themselves. A mix with lots of personal qualities. Devil Kalligraphy has ligatures which look evil. Ascendents and descendents were designed to look that way too. Kerning was designed taking into account the way calligraphers used (and still use) to write: Pattern looking.

A nice trashy font for those grungy posters...or was it the other way around?

BillieBob was made by cramping straight shapes into squares. Somewhat reminds me of pre cold-war Russian type.

Vintage Comics JNL was inspired by the way the word “comics” was hand lettered on many of the comic book covers of the 1940s, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Introduced by the American Type Founders Co. at the time of the Spanish American War and advertised as suitable for "War Scare Headlines"! Used by many papers for years after because the narrow type was suitable for narrow single column heads.

Ano Angular was originally designed for a fashion company. It was to be used as a headline type, half way between the logo we had designed — made up of straight lines only — and our circle-based Ano typeface, which was to be used for text. Its design is based on the idea of mixing circles with triangles into letter shapes in a modular, constructed way. The effect is digital, mathematical, remeniscent of the typography of 1980s arcade games such as Asteroids.

This face was drawn on paper with a calligraphy pen and way too much ink. It's perfect for that spooky globular look.

A couple of years before the second World War, Marcel Jacno, the popular French graphic designer who in the 1930s designed iconic posters for Gaumont and Paramount and famously illustrated the Gaulish helmet that first adorned the Gauloises cigarette packs in 1936, was asked by Deberny & Peignot to design a calligraphic typeface for the advertising market. Jacno's Scribe design, billed by D&P as a "virile ad writing" typeface, was released to some great fanfare in 1937, enjoyed some time of French spotlight, and was ready to make waves in the rest of Europe before the war broke out and snuffed its chances at international recognition. However, samples of it can still be found in some specialty post-war publications as an example of a trend that lasted a couple of decades, when Western European type manufacturers commissioned famous visual artists to design typefaces in order to capitalize on the artists' fame - the trend that brought us standards like Futura and the long list of Lucien Bernhard and Imre Reiner faces. This exclusive digital version of Jacno's design expands on the original concept with a large character set that includes plenty of alternates, a couple of different ways for seamless lowercase connections, three sets of figures, and extended Latin language support, adding up to over 540 characters in a one big, contextually-programmed font.

Buttercut was inspired by classic slab serif fonts, such as Roboto Slab and Rockwell. However, Buttercut is way more bouncy and “off grid” - maybe the reason for that is that it was influenced by both grafitti and comics?!

Cherily Blussom was made with an inky pen, and little was done to correct the blurry edges. That's why Cherry Blussom stands out in such an authentic way! Comes with both ligatures and alternates - combine them and spice up your text!

Dumm DUM. Dumm DUM. Duh dum duh dum duh dum DUMMMM... Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water, this font surfaces to take one last bite out of your summer vacation skinnydip! Scream and scream again — it won’t do you any good, SHARKSNACK is rough and ready to EAT YOU ALIVE! It’s too late to close the beaches, Chief Brody, this particular set of saw tooth letters has already consumed Dracula, the Werewolf, the Frankenstein Monster and any number of 70s comic book characters foolish enough to dip a toe in its maw!

Candycorn Overdose represents how I used to feel on the morning after Halloween, way back when I was young enough to go out begging for candy.

Bremen was designed at Bitstream by Richard Lipton and released in 1992. It is based on German poster art from the period between the World Wars.

A 1918 poster issued during World War I from the YWCA encouraged women to pitch in to the war effort by joining the “United War Work Campaign”. The Art Nouveau hand lettering of that poster was a slight throwback to the “Western” or “Victorian” style of typography because of the characters having split serifs. This is now available as Village Hall JNL, in both regular and oblique versions

Wolfsburg is a classic blackletter stencil typeface. It is reminiscent of the days before computers when the best way to reproduce letters quickly was to stencil them.

Madison is a classic slab serif stencil typeface. It is reminiscent of the days before computers when the best way to reproduce letters quickly was to stencil them.

During the turbulent era of the 1960s, the youth of America found various ways to protest against "The Establishment". Whether it was campus unrest, protest songs, sit-ins or other methods, the message was the counter-culture movement. Arising from this disenchantment with traditional social standards, a small but effective means of protest arose that made no sound, yet spoke volumes - the pin button. Statements against the war in Vietnam, free love, drug use and other messages popped up on little metal discs pinned to tee shirts, suspenders, head band and hats. Sixties Pin Buttons JNL recreates twenty-six of these messages in both white on black (upper case keys) and black on white (lower case keys). Blank buttons in both white and black are found on the parenthesis keys.

This idea of "wrong way weights" was originally called French Clarendon by the Americans, Italienne by the French, and American by the Italians. Sounds like nobody wanted to own up to it. When it was revived by ATF in 1933, it was given the name P. T. Barnum. Many variations have appeared. Dime Museum is an old wood type.

Popsmart means "smart or skilled in a superficial, self-righteous or annoying way" - but when I was young in the 1980ies, it was a positive thing to be popsmart. At least in Denmark! :) Anyway, I find this font to be smart in a positive way: It has a bouncy appearance ( with help from the Contextual Alternates, the font cycles the 6 different versions of each letter!) and a "go-ahead-and-type-anything-and-it-will-end-up-looking-good" kinda vibe.

Findon is a classic sans serif uppercase stencil typeface. It is reminiscent of the days before computers when the best way to reproduce letters quickly was to stencil them.

Originally ZionTrain was built as a (probably first in Cyrillic!) navigation typeface for the Kharkiv identity project and Kharkiv subway and airport navigation systems. We wanted comprehensible, distinctive letterforms, that can help everybody on the way from Babylon to Zion. The project was used in Kharkiv promotion at homeland and abroad, but was rejected by the new government. As a corporate typeface it was used for a few cultural projects.

Master of the World was included on the front page of a novel in several parts, The Count of Monte Christo (mid 20th century). Typeface characters show design guidelines of the pre-war era (2nd world war). The idea of development origins from a wish to evolve traditional forms of typefaces which were used in Slovenia.

Gimcrack is "showy but cheap or badly made" - that's what a search on the internet says. Well, that description fits this font quite well - although it was deliberately made that way!

Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed. Elegant but with that distance that well-defined forms seem to impose. Her voice, however, was sweeter, closer, and when she spoke her name, like a slow whisper, one felt like what she had come to say could be read in her image. Rufina’s story can only be told through a detour because her origin does not coincide with her birth. Rufina was born on a Sunday afternoon while her father was drawing black letters on a white background, and her mother was trying to join those same letters to form words that could tell a story. But her origin goes much further back, and that is why she is pierced by a story that precedes her, even though it is not her own. Maybe her origin can be traced back to that autumn night in which that tall man with that distant demeanor ran into that woman with that sweet smile and elegant aspect. He looked at her in such a way that he was trapped by that gaze, even though they found no words to say to each other, and they stayed in silence. Somehow, some words leaked into that gaze because since that moment they were never apart again. Later, after they started talking, projects started coming up and then coexistence and arguments, routines and mismatches. But in that chaos of crossed words in their life together, something was stable through the silence of the gazes. In those gazes, the silent words sustained that indescribable love that they didn’t even try to understand. And in one of those silences, Rufina appeared, when that man told that woman that he needed a text to try out his new font, and she saw him look at her with that same fascination of the first time, and she started to write something with those forms that he was giving her as a gift. Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed, wrote her mother when Rufina was born. Photo (Fragilité): Karin Topolanski / Post: Raw (www.raw.com.uy) - María Pérez Gutiérrez

Axteroid was made to look like something that was teleported from a computergame from way-back in the 80s. To make it more 21st century-like, I have spiced the font up with some OpenType alternate letters and ligatures! You will need to use OpenType supporting applications to use the autoligatures.

Browsing online auctions is a wonderful way to pick up ideas for font designs. Take Condensed Stencil JNL for example. This font was modeled from a set of vintage brass interlocking stencils.

The front page headline of the April 6, 1917 edition of the Bemidji Pioneer [from Bemidji, Minnesota] says in extrabold letters: “State of War is Declared”. The subtext underneath reads: “President Signs Resolution 1:13 P.M., Passed by House 3 O’Clock this Morning”. Thus, the United States formally entered into World War I. However… that subtext was set in a sans serif type face which was a perfect addition to the numerous newspaper-inspired type revivals offered by Jeff Levine Fonts. Morning Edition JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Hortensia, designed around 1900 by Emil Gursch for his own Berlin foundry, is a typeface most expressive of the post-Victorian aesthetic that was all the rage in both Europe and America during the second half of the 19th century and up until the Great War. It is a reduced aesthetic of sharp points and natural curves that almost want to apologize for their own elegance, but clearly embody the simple excitement about the blossoming of industry and crafts during the period. This deco script trend would get a re-run for about a decade on either side of the second World War — especially in the entertainment and financial industries — before giving way to art nouveau and big brush faces. Hortensia was Gursch's most popular typeface, used extensively and prominently in many beautiful type catalogs, and a commonly seen design element in Germany for quite a while after its release. This digital version brings plenty of fixes and additions to the original metal Hortensia design, including many alternates sprinkled throughout the character set, and support for a wide range of Latin-based languages (including Central European, Baltic, Turkish and Welsh).

Dragonblood is quite an unusual font: it was made with Parker ink and a Chinese fur brush. When all the glyphs had been vectorized, and I saw them in a text for the first time, the only appropriate name I could think of was Dragonblood. Dragonblood comes with a realm of diacritics.

Alphabet Agency proudly presents Bludsport ODS font. The font design captures elements of war and gore with its grungy military stencil style. The font was designed for use in a variety of genres including in the film and television industry (war and horror), gaming industry, outdoors/survivalist industry and combat sport themes. Each font includes uppercase, lowercase, numbers, punctuation and basic Latin characters.

Sometimes you need things organised in a neat way. Organic Tuesday has that, but also a will to break free at the same time. Years ago I was at a restaurant where the menu was handwritten with a clumsy, but characteristic and charming, monospaced font. I must have focused so much on these letters that I can’t recall what I actually ate. But what I do remember is that it was a Tuesday, and the restaurant was organic!

Before ink jet and laser printers; before copy machines, the main way to make multiples of anything not provided by printing press was by a mimeograph machine or spirit duplicator. The mimeograph utilized a porous drum which inked the backside of a waxed stencil sheet. Unlike traditional stencils which have cut out areas that are directly inked or painted, a mimeo stencil has the area to be printed scratched away by removing the wax coating with a stylus. The resulting image allows the ink from the drum to seep through the sheet and transfer to the blank paper. Based on a plastic lettering guide once manufactured by the A.B. Dick Company of Chicago, Mimeograph Template JNL is available in regular and oblique versions. Albert Blake Dick, the company’s founder, coined the term ‘mimeography’. The font’s character shapes follow the routed letters of the template, complete with rounded terminals. An earlier font release [designed with flat terminals and some alternate characters] is available as Interoffice Memo JNL.