This easy to read, versatile letterstyle was inspired by Al Imelli's "Advertiser's Square" (circa 1920's). Modifications were made and alternates added.

In researching historic decorative material offered by Lanston Monotype as well as other metal foundries such as Barnhart Brothers and Spindler, there were occasionally ornaments that defied description. Perhaps it was a Victorian sense of humor or someone really thought these were a good idea or perhaps popular taste has just changed so much over the last hundred years, or our forbearers were completely insane. In any case, LTC is somewhat proud to present a collection of the most bizarre, disturbing and baffling printers ornaments we could find. Along with mutant fowl-children and frolicsome amphibians, there are also Masonic and other secret fraternal symbols that may not be creepy to everyone, but just enough to be moderately disturbing.

Imperija Roman is a display typeface inspired by stone engraved lettering. Supporting west, central and east European languages it contains over one-hundred discretionary ligatures and a stylistic set for old style diacritics. The original letters were drawn from a memorial engraving in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Further development and several iterations later, Imperija Roman has a flowing organic feel while staying true to the rigid constraints of stone-cut letters. The alternative diacritics in stylistic set one were included to give the user more options for a historical feel to the lettering. The discretionary ligatures also offer a huge range of variation and were drawn based off of historical Roman sources and common frequency digraphs in major European languages.

Prior to 500 AD the 24-rune Elder Futhark was used in Sweden. From 500 AD until 800 AD there were many Futharks which were transitions from the 24-rune Futhark to one of the 16-rune Futharks. By the end of this period the 24-rune Futhark was completely out of use , and only 16-runes Futharks were in use. By 900 AD two different types of Shorttwigs-Futharks had been born. One was popularized in Norway and the other was used in the west (the British islands). By 1000 AD the adjustment of the runes to the Latin alphabet had begun, and several versions are found up until the Dalrunes, about 1700-1800 AD.

Ratcaps and Ratkeys were designed as a set of highly-legible keycap fonts for use in software and systems documentation destined for in-house printing. They were specifically designed for clarity and legibility even on low-resolution (300 dpi) laser printers. Ratcaps consist of representations of the basic alpha-numeric keyboard keys. Ratkeys contains the special function and modifier keys. Both fonts also come in a 3D-effect version.

It is a neat and friendly handwriting typeface with unadorned innocence. The tight handwriting gives off a cute atmosphere as if it were written by a young person. In the existing KINDERLAND, only Regular and Bold were introduced, but the Korean version of the font introduces two white weights. White weight can give a unique feel by saving only the border and not filling the typeface. This font contains Korean.

A style of die-cut cardboard letters and numbers used for signs, displays and show cards was the basis for Haute Couture JNL, an Art-Deco flavored typeface from Jeff Levine. A direct cousin to Signboard JNL, this font shares some similar characteristics in letterforms. Both styles of die-cut lettering were manufactured by a number of companies, and were most popular from the 1940s through the mid-1960s.

Ratcaps and Ratkeys were designed as a set of highly-legible keycap fonts for use in software and systems documentation destined for in-house printing. They were specifically designed for clarity and legibility even on low-resolution (300 dpi) laser printers. Ratcaps consist of representations of the basic alpha-numeric keyboard keys. Ratkeys contains the special function and modifier keys. Both fonts also come in a 3D-effect version.

The first photo-typesetting machine in operation, the Uhertype, was introduced in 1925. It was a combination of manual phototypesetting machine and make-up machine. The machine’s typefaces were designed by Jan Tschichold. The patents on Uhertype were bought up at the time to prevent the invention of filmsetting spreading. Jan Tschichold has been very influenced by Gill Sans (1928) for this humanistic sans serif drawn in 1933/36 for Uhertype.

Ephemera Shoemakers is a bold font with spurred serif & medium contrasted, vintage inspiration with letters in all caps. Traditionally this type of decorative font that emerged in Italy, France & England in the nineteenth century were used in large headlines and posters that were closely related to circus shows, carnival or environments of the Far West American. Perfect for signs, posters, handbills and other large format advertising. Ephemera Shoemakers Pdf Specimens

PiS Lietz Parilon invites you to the austrian countryside for an amazing ski-tour on snowy mountains back then when skilifts were sparse and mustaches were far from ironic. Use this heavy fraktur for retro tourism posters, your classic beer or schnaps brand or anything that needs a good swig of tradition! Heat up the Jagatee and enjoy the earthy taste of PiS Lietz Parilon, it will warm your heart!

Benton Modern was first prepared as a text face by Font Bureau for the Boston Globe and the Detroit Free Press. Design and proportions were taken from Morris Fuller Benton’s turn-of-the-century Century Expanded, drawn for ATF, faithfully reviving this epoch-making magazine and news text roman. The italic was based on Century Schoolbook. These display cuttings were prepared by Dyana Weissman and Richard Lipton; FB 2008

Painting Stencil JNL was modeled in part from a vintage set of 8 inch Gothic stencils. Alphabets of this size were generally referred to as painting stencils because each letter could be painted individually in marking signs, streets or buildings, where the classic 'lettering guide' type of stencils were used for smaller projects and had alignment holes for accurate letter spacing as well as multiples letters per page.

This font is an adaptation of the typeface I designed for TJX Europe, which was used in their branding campaigns for the TK MAXX stores all over Europe. Most characters were given a major facelift and also a few extra ligatures were added in the process. Quintus comes with a regular and a bold version so it offers more variety in use. It also works well in all caps.

Bertie was designed by Alan Meeks in 1986, an ornamented typeface with a light and elegant look. Such typefaces were at their peak in the middle of the 19th century, when they were created for the advertisements of booming industries. The sophisticated Bertie is based on forms of the transitional period and is best used in headlines with point sizes of 18 or larger to highlight its unique details.

A 1967 ad for Aurora “Monster Scenes Custom Builder Kits” featured the drippy, gooey hand lettering long associated with science fiction and horror movies. The letters in the ad were auto-scanned and additional characters were completed with the end result being a horror-themed font with sharper angles and lines instead of drips. This is now available as Monster Movies JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Please note: the wispy effect in the illustrations were applied to characters from the font but is not part of the font itself.

Inkpad Letters JNL joins a number of fonts that were reproduced by Jeff Levine from inked impressions of various rubber stamp printing sets.

In 1951 Alessandro Butti cut a fontfamily for Nebiolo which he called Fluidum. Both weights, light and bold, were now revived and named Butti.

French Stencil JNL was inspired by images of a set of metal stencils from France that were offered for sale in an online auction.

Eight was desinged to be heavily geometric. The main lines were intended to be entirely comprised of lines of eight different but set angles.

Fledermaus (meaning 'Bat' in German) was a cabaret theater from Vienna. The original Jugendstil decor was designed by Josef Hoffman and several posters, advertising performances, were designed by other members of the Vienna Workshop. Fledermaus font was based on a 1907 poster by Bertold Löffler. Since only a few glyphs were available, I designed the missing ones myself. The lower case consists of small caps and the font comes with extensive language support.

In the Dynamic Seventies, "prismatic" typefaces were all the rage, and few were more popular than variants of Paul Renner's Futura and the Herbert Bayer-inspired Bauhaus. This family of fonts features Futura-like forms in the uppercase and Bauhaus-like forms in the lowercase, so you can mix or match to create just the perfect headline. As always, all versions contain the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets.

To meet the burgeoning demands of commerce, type founders in 1830s London introduced a plethora of new fonts which abandoned the traditional nib-informed model. Most radical were bold, capital-only designs with almost no stroke contrast, stripped bare of serifs. To all intents and purposes these minimal expressions of utility were identical to 20th century functionalism. Recontextualizing one of the original sans fonts, Shinn offers an alternative proposition to the myth of modernism.

Sackers Gothic is part of the larger Sackers series, a collection of fonts drawn from templates for producing engraved stationery and social cards by Gary Sackers, a Charlotte, North Carolina intaglio printer. Many typefaces were made from similar sources, including Monotype’s Engravers series, as well as Jim Spiece’s ITC Blair, and Mark van Bronkhorst’s Sweet Sans. Sackers’ typefaces, which were initially made into photo-set type, were digitized by Compugraphic and released in the late 1980s. Sackers Gothic has since become a popular choice for conveying sincere and plainspoken language on dust jackets, posters, and of course, in stationery. The face pairs well with display faces of a disparate nature, and serves as a ready foil for anything requiring an air of typographic sophistication.

The digital outline fonts, DIN 1451 Fette Engschrift and Fette Mittelschrift were created by URW in 1984 and are the basis for all DIN font families. Both typefaces were designed for the URW SIGNUS system and were mainly used for the production of traffic signs. They have since become so popular in other areas that we have developed a complete DIN font family with 48 styles in OpenType Pro: URW DIN. It is semi-condensed, which is unique among the DIN fonts, so it has a broad spectrum of typographic uses. Its large x-height makes it perfect for use in e-publishing (web, apps, e-Books etc) and its adjusted stroke width between the regular and bold weights enhances its quality and distinguishability in print.

Once upon a time, in the days BC (that's Before Computers) there lived a very talented group of men and women whose job it was to render ads by hand. So skillful were these people that some say it was possible to actually identify the typefaces that the layout artists were emulating. Their renderings were swift and slick, no time for detail as it was necessary to do a whole bunch of variations, usually within ridiculous deadlines. Their only tools: bullet-tip markers and bond paper - often mistakes resulted but no time to re-do and white paint was totally unacceptable - just let the slipups be. Here's a simulation of their craft, we don't really know what typeface this was supposed to represent… any ideas?

In the early days of printing it was soon recognized that there was a need to identify the printer and publisher behind the printed work. So these industrious people created marks to identify themselves to clients. This font contains over 160 marks dating back to the early years of printing with the likes of Fust, Ratdolt, Manutius, Caxton, and a whole host of others represented. Some of these printers were very influential and altered the course of history, some merely enabled the broader public to access the classics. Some were imprisoned and others helped foment revolutions. But all were riding the new current of this technology of moveable type that helped transform our world through the enabling of easily exchanging information.

ITC Avant Garde Gothic is a font family based on the logo font used in the Avant Garde magazine. Herb Lubalin devised the logo concept and its companion headline typeface, then he and Tom Carnase, a partner in Lubalin’s design firm, worked together to transform the idea into a full-fledged typeface. The condensed fonts were drawn by Ed Benguiat in 1974, and the obliques were designed by André Gürtler, Erich Gschwind and Christian Mengelt in 1977. The original designs include one version for setting headlines and one for text copy. However, in the initial digitization, only the text design was chosen, and the ligatures and alternate characters were not included. The font family consists of 5 weights (4 for condensed), with complementary obliques for widest width fonts. When ITC released the OpenType version of the font, the original 33 alternate characters and ligatures, plus extra characters were included. ITC Avant Garde Gothic® font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives. Featured in: Best Fonts for Logos, Best Fonts for Websites, Best Fonts for PowerPoints

The name DIN refers to the Deutsches Institut für Normung (in English, the German Institute for Standardization). The typeface began life as the DIN Institute's standard no. DIN 1451, published in 1931. It contained several models of standard alphabets for mechanically engraved lettering, hand-lettering, lettering stencils and printing types. These were to be used in the areas of signage, traffic signs, wayfinding, lettering on technical drawings and technical documentation. Rooted in earlier designs for Germany's railway companies, the alphabets were based on geometric shapes in order to be easily reproducible using compass and ruler. In post-1945 West Germany, the DIN alphabets were widely used, for instance on most road signs. They became available as fonts that were appreciated by designers for their industrial, somewhat quirky and “non-typographic” look and feel. From the 1990s onwards, more refined versions became available for use in book and magazine typography. DIN Next is a typographically corrected and expanded version of this quintessential 20th-century design. DIN Next Rounded is its softer, friendlier version.

The Dalecarlian runes, or dalrunes, was a late version of the runic script that was in use in the Swedish province of Dalarna until the 20th century.The province has consequently been called the "last stronghold of the Germanic script. When Carl Linnaeus visited Älvdalen in Dalarna in 1734, he made the following note in his diary: The peasants in the community here, apart from using rune staves, still today write their names and ownership marks with runic letters, as is seen on walls, corner stones, bowls, etc. Which one does not know to be still continued anywhere else in Sweden. The Dalecarlian runes were derived from the medieval runes, but the runic letters were combined with Latin ones, and Latin letters would progressively replace the runes. At the end of the 16th century, the Dalecarlian runic inventory was almost exclusively runic, but during the following centuries more and more individual runes were replaced with Latin characters. In its last stage almost every rune had been replaced with a Latin letter, or with special versions that were influenced by Latin characters.

Volta is a robust typeface from the 1950s. A revisit to styles that were en vogue at the turn of the century, Bauer type foundry designers Walter Baum and Konrad Bauer designed this type family in1955. The form of Volta's letters are similar to those in New Transitional Serif typefaces, like Cheltenham and Century. Developed after the Didone (i.e., Bodoni) style types, New Transitional Serifs speak more to the zeitgeist of the late 19th Cntury, and were typographic adaptations to it's newer technologies. Already in the period of mass production, typographers and printers at the dawn of the 20th Century had to cope with larger print runs on cheaper materials. The robust letterforms of New Transitional Serifs were designed to compensate for this, but they were also ingenious little inventions in their own right. Form the beginning, the new, peculiar forms of New Transitional Serif letters were adopted for use by advertisers. Their robustness also allowed them to be used in virtually all sizes. Volta was designed especially with advertising display usage in mind. The x-height of Volta's letters is higher than average for serif faces. It is recommended that Volta be used exclusively for shorter tracks of text, above 12 point. Headlines look dashing set in Volta. Four different font styles are available for the Volta typeface: Regular, Medium, Medium Italic, and Bold."

Sweet Upright Script is the first release for Sweet Fonts Collection, published by MVB Fonts. It is an interpreted revival of a vintage, social engraving lettering style that was popular during the 20th Century. It is probably the first digital version of the design. With the advent of the engraving machine (a pantograph device) around 1900, commercial engraving moved from the use of hand-cut plates to the use of masterplates (lettering patterns). Lettering was traced from the masterplate using the engraving machine, letter by letter, onto a coated steel plate, that would then be etched in a chemical bath. The resulting plate was used to print engraved stationery with the raised print distinctive to the process. Many of these lettering styles were used for decades for commercial and social applications (letterheads, wedding invitations, etc.), but as they were merely traced alphabets, were not "fonts". Many remain unavailable in digital form. Over time, a number of the most popular styles were adapted to phototype, which sped up the process of plating for engraving, avoiding the need to trace each letter by hand with the engraving machine. Later, when type went digital, these phototype fonts were revived as digital fonts. As a result, the styles offered by engravers narrowed over time, as has the range of engraving styles revived in digital form.

Thataway JNL is an assortment of arrows in many different sizes, shapes and directions that were collected from antique letterpress blocks and other vintage sources.

This font is based on real prints made out of a linocut. The glyphs were handprinted, then scanned and then turned into a computer font.

Vintage French tin stencils with various phrases were the model for Paris Stencil JNL. The type design is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Stencil Machine JNL replicates the lettering of a stencil cutting machine. The stencils produced on such machines were primarily used for carton identification and shipping.

Titles from the 1938 movie "Service Deluxe" starring Vincent Price and Constance Bennett were the inspiration for the similarly named Art Deco typeface Service Deluxe JNL.

The words “Benny Goodman & His Orchestra” on an appearance poster for the band from 1936 were rendered in a beautiful semi-script style of hand lettering.