The Phantom Isles: Retro Tiki Font A Textured Retro Font Inspired by Tropical Tiki Style and South Sea Adventures! The Phantom Isles is a hand-drawn font inspired by 1950s Tiki culture, tales of exotic locations and south sea adventures. It features the textured look of weathered wood and is the perfect choice for book covers, movie titles, theme parks or vintage themed events. The font includes a complete set of uppercase and lowercase characters, along with numbers, punctuation, symbols and language support. You’ll also find a set of specially illustrated underlines, shapes and icons including flora and fauna, old rope, skulls and more. A Brief History of Tiki Culture Originating from Māori mythology, a tiki is a wooden or stone carving that represents deified ancestors found in most Polynesian cultures. The mainstream and commercialised Tiki Culture that became popular across America from the 1930s to 50s was inspired by the sentimental appeal of an idealised South Pacific, particularly Hawaii, as viewed through the experiences of those who had visited such areas during World War II and cinematic depictions of beautiful scenery, forbidden love and the potential for danger. Over time it selectively incorporated more cultural elements of other regions that affected Polynesia, such as Southeast Asia. The Americanised form of Tiki Culture maintains a dedicated following today, particularly among those interested in 1950s graphic and interior design, history and the escapist lounge aesthetic it inspires. Learn more about the history of Tiki and Polynesian culture.

Aura was designed by Jackson Burke for the Linotype foundry in 1960. Aura is a sans serif display font, very similar to Helvetica Inserat. Use the Aura font for headlines and posters.

Bernhard Fashion is a fine line sans serif typeface designed by Lucian Bernhard in 1929. Use the Bernhard Fashion font for posters, book covers, promotional material and packaging.

Metropolis was designed by W. Schwerdtner and released in 1928. The tapered strokes give the impression of height. The Metropolis font family shares an attractive, informal headline design.

A thoroughly fun font based on handlettering found on a travel brochure for IMM Steamship Lines, circa 1927, and named after a fictitious girl who likes kissing alot.

The Arts And Crafts-GS font is loosely inspired by the lettering of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 - 1928) of the Glasgow School, from which Jessie receive her training.

Operapolitan is inspired by a hand-lettered list of board members to a major metropolitan opera company in the 1920s. The font features special ligatures and a complete alternative glyph set meant for use with OpenType contextual alternates to help create the feel of real hand lettering, along with a complete international character set and built-in small capitals. Elegant but not stuffy, the font has rough edges to capture a vintage, slightly-used vibe.

One of the earliest Monotype faces, issued about 1906 in two weights, normal and semibold. Based on Schelter & Giesecke's School Fraktur which was in turn based on type favored by early 16th century printers in Wittenberg. It was the door of the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg on which Luther nailed his 95 theses. For this reason, types similar to Wittenberger Fraktur are particularly associated with Lutheran theology. There are two s versions in the DFR-layout. They enable you to typeset the old way, where the long s with the form like an f is used in the beginning and middle of a syllable or word and the typical round s, also called final s, is used at the end of syllable and end of words.

Designed by R.H. Middleton for Ludlow, circa 1930. Digitally engineered by Steve Jackaman.

A bold slab-serif typeface influenced by Spagetti Western posters of the 1960s.

This ultrabold headline font is basically patterned after the font Nubian Black, designed by Willard T. Sniffin for American Type Founders in the 1920s, but includes an unusual inline treatment of the caps. Named for the local television show on KFJZ-TV (later KTVT) in Fort Worth, Texas, that introduced a whole new generation of kids to the Three Stooges, and hosted by the erstwhile Icky Twerp. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

ITC Ziggy was designed by Bob Alonso, who says it started out as phone doodles in the early 1970s." Alonso rediscovered the sketches years later, thought they revived the feel of the 70s, and decided to digitize the typeface. He liked the form of the letter Z best, so named the font Ziggy. ITC Ziggy reminds its designer of "elephant bellbottoms" and its style as a display face instantly evokes a nostalgia for the 1970s.

Inspired by some handwritten letter forms originally made by Hermann Zapf for his 1949 book "Pen and Graver", the drawings and designs finally became an entire font. It is an ideal companion to create diplomas, certificates and any other vintage projects. Take advantage of the long s which can be reached when you change the round s by the historical OpenType feature or when you simply type the integral sign [ ∫]. This font contains also swash forms of d, g, and v.

Introducing Strong Grandpa, a super bold retro script font which will bring back to 60s - 70s fell. Inspired from retro typography and lettering in the 60's and 70's combine with bold typography style. it’s great for any project that needs a retro vibe or vintage touch. Strong Grandpa is perfect for vintage and retro design, badge, logos,t-shirt, poster, branding, title, heading, packaging, signage, book coverand so much more!

Overland is a strong Art Deco typeface, inspired by the train 'The Overland' that runs in Australia, the font is perfect for headlines, display, branding and much more... even wedding stationary!. It is a bold and dense with an obvious deco inspired background, great for any projects or brands that wear the roaring 20's to 40's on their sleeve. Great for Signage, Wedding stationary, logos, branding materials, business cards, quotes, posters, and more!

Anna Gagarin is the loving matriarch of the Gagarin Family. Her life was full of love and passion. She had several affairs with Futurist and Contstructivist artist in the beginning of the 20th century. She was in love with the Russian poet Vladimir Majakovski (born on July 19th, 1893 and died in Moscow on the April 14th, 1930). She gave birth to his son Boris. She called him 'a cloud with trousers'. After this love story, Anna Gagarin met the designer and artist Gustav Klucis in Italy. His radical and political ideas were much too childish for her. After a period of love and passion Anna gave birth to his son. At that time they were in Italy, which explains his italic forms. After her return to Moscow in the beginning of the 1920's Anna was introduced by Alexander Rodchenko. They were heavenly in love but Ilja Stepanova was very jealous on her husband. Anna once said that 'Alexander fills mine construction with love...' That phrase can be an explanation for the term Constructuvism as an art movement. Alexander was the great love of Anna. She gave birth to their love-baby Dimitri Gagarin. That night Alexander designed his most famous poster. A decade before that Anna told it was
'a time for a change'. In a local bar in Sint Petersburg she met Gregory Rasputin. At that time Rasputin was a well known person and a respected member of the Sint Petersburg upper class.His diabolic character influenced Anna and after several months she gave birth to their son Kurt. He inherited the main characteristics of his father. The Gagarin Family wants to give love and wants be loved...

Anyone old enough to remember either the radio or television version of “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” pictures Ozzie Nelson as the easygoing father figure who never seemed to have a real job – he was always hanging around the house. In truth, the handsome young Ozzie was a bandleader in the 1930s and 1940s and ended up marrying his ‘girl singer’, Harriet Hilliard. A piece of sheet music from 1933 for “You Have Taken My Heart” was one of the songs Nelson featured with his Columbia Broadcasting System Orchestra. The title was hand lettered in what can only be described as a slightly eccentric Art Deco Sans serif. Redrawn and cleaned up to reflect more uniform stroke weights, Bandshell JNL is now available in both regular and oblique versions.

Electrostatic JNL was inspired by the 1930s lettering for radio station WMCA in New York City. It was found as part of an ad for the station in a 1932 radio broadcasting trade magazine. WMCA went on the air Feb. 6, 1925. According to Wikipedia, the "MCA" call letters stood for the Hotel McAlpin, where the station's original studio and transmitter were located. "W" is the call sign prefix for all broadcast stations East of the Mississippi River; with the exception of KDKA (Pittsburgh), which was the nation's first commercial radio station. This bold novelty typeface with lightning bolds intersecting the characters can be used to represent anything from electricity to stormy days; power generators to brute force and so forth. Electrostatic JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Neon Rounded is a rounded monoline typeface inspired by retro neon light bulbs often used in signage. Neon bulbs were first seen back in 1910 in Paris. They later became popular in 1930s New York, especially on Broadway and the Las Vegas strip. Although Neon Rounded was designed with eye-catching signs in mind, its possible usage is vast. Clothing brands, road signs, logos and advertising. The heavier weights lend themselves to children's books and toys, while the lighter weights provide a more modern, futuristic feel. The typeface contains lower and uppercases in five weights: Light, Regular, Medium, Semi-bold and Bold. There are also alternatives for most letters and all numbers. The glyph set includes all languages covered in Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement and Latin Extended-A scripts.

Giraffe is a wide and bold rounded serif in two styles. Giraffe occupies a large space and is best used as display type to convey a confident look. Giraffe comes with a set of Stylistic Alternates for letters C,G,J,R,S, a, c, f, g, r, s and $.

Jvne77 Studio presents: Cittá Novela is an upright typeface family inspired by vintage architecture from the mid 20's to the 60's. A classy and didonesque streamlined sans which will perfectly set in a poor line space for Titling and text. Multilingual, diacritics, ligatures and alternates for near 570 glyphes.

The PM Doorbuster Collection is based on retro hand-painted paper signs primarily seen in grocery stores from the 1940s through today. We meticulously hand-drew each font, modeling the spacing and uneven baseline found in vintage sign painting. The purposely organic ascenders and descenders, along with a huge set of ligatures/contextual alternates to avoid the same letters repeating when paired, give it a real hand-lettered look. PM Doorbuster Casual is perfect for both vintage-inspired and contemporary marketing, branding, and packaging designs. It's a classic uppercase sign painter font that has been used from the 1950s thru today. You've probably seen hand-lettered versions used in tattoo studios, workshops, and chalkboard menus. Now it's available in a digital format with all of the authentic look and feel of actual hand-painted letters. Check out a few of the samples included in the thumbnails to see what can be done with it.

Albiona Inked is a vintage distressed version of Albiona that evokes the urgency of teletext printers, typewriter ribbons and authentic hot-metal type on rougher paper. A contemporary slab-serif, it revisits aspects of Robert Besley’s classic Clarendon, designed around 1842 for Thorowgood and Co. and named after the Clarendon Press in Oxford. Subsequently extended by Stephenson Blake in the 1950s, Albiona adds the inwardly-curved stroke terminals of the same foundry ’s Grotesque series, and includes italics and old-style and tabular numerals. The original Clarendon’s ball serifs and calligraphic eccentricities have been rationalised and streamlined for functional contemporary uses. The family consists of five weights plus italics and a stencil, and its clean readable style is perfect for both extended text as well as headline setting. A rounded “soft” version is also available.

Das Riese, a type specimen by the most productive Brazilian type foundry, Intellecta Design, is a mix of victorian and art deco influences. A beautiful display type for tiling with uppercases only. It's shadows and volumes refer to pre-modern age whereas its surface to last century 20's. This heavy sans serif strokes characters have a particular appearance, a parallel line texture that reminds Bifur, typeface created in 1929 by A. M. Cassandre. The sideways absence of volume at some leaning letters right side in addition to the patchy darkness of shadows support its handmade design. A type full of historical references designed to small titles printed in big sizes. It's impossible not to think about posters when you look at Das Riese strong face. - (source Slanted Magazine #8)

Almost every type designer feels the need, from time to time, to interrupt his or her serious work on complex text type systems for something more playful. In Luc(as)'s case this has often meant designing more typefaces. In the early 1990s, while working on Thesis, Luc(as) drew several display faces which were based on the shapes of TheSans but were either de(con)structive versions or experimental variations. Probably the most innovative of these was Nebulae, in which the lettershapes have been dissolved into clouds of bubbles; the three versions can be layered to obtain a denser (and more legible) structure which can also be multi-coloured. A fourth version called ThreeDee (3D) offers a convincing simulation of three-dimensional bubble-like type floating in space.

Born on May 8, 1892 in Reno Nevada, Lewis Franklin (“Lew” ) Hymers left an indelible mark as a caricaturist, cartoonist and graphic artist. At the age of twenty [in 1912] he worked for the San Francisco Chronicle. During World War I he worked for the Washington Post. He even was employed for a time by Walt Disney as an animator - but most of his life was spent in either Tujunga, California or his birthplace of Reno, Nevada as a self-employed illustrator. Hymers inked a feature for the Nevada State Journal called “Seen About Town”, which was published during the 1930s and 1940s. In this panel, he caricaturized many of the familiar faces around Reno. He also designed signs, logos, post cards and numerous other commercial illustrations for clients, but what has endeared him to a number of fans was his vast library of stock cuts (the predecessor to paper and electronic clip art) which feature his humorous characters in various professions and life situations. So popular is his work amongst those “in the know” that a clip art book collection of over seven hundred of his drawings that was issued by Dover Publications [but long out of print] commands asking prices ranging from just under $15 to well over $100 for a single copy. Lew Hymers passed away on February 5, 1953 just a few months shy of his 61st birthday. Although his artwork depicts the 1930s and 1940s lifestyles, equipment and conveniences, more than sixty years after his death they stand up amazingly well as cheerful pieces of nostalgia. The twenty-seven images (and some variants) in Hymers JNL were painstakingly re-drawn from scans of one of his catalogs and is but just a tiny fraction of the hundreds upon hundreds of illustrations from the pen of this prolific artist.

To design the font Erazm, I was inspired by books from the 30's from Poland. From a few letters I created an entire typeface - lower and uppercase characters.

Raljon is a display typeface created by designer and lettering artist Mark Robinson. It is a collaboration between the Mmarkk and Teen-Beat Graphica visual design studios. This single font was created over a period of five years. Mark took great care in finessing each character and making sure that each character would stand on its own and yet simultaneously, be an integral part of the whole. The typeface is inspired by Gothic letterforms, horror novels, speed metal bands of the 1980s, techno and electronic music of the 1990s, and Washington, DC football teams whose stadiums lie in the Maryland suburbs. While it doesn’t have multiple weights, Raljon does have a deep depth and breadth. It has a seemingly endless amount of alternate characters and ligatures. There are nine letter Ms, eight letter As and Fs, seven Rs and Ts, and the list goes on. Even the figures have alternates.

Here's a posh serif typeface and its matching italic. Glowing with elegance, Cosmetiqa can go head to head with classic evergreens like Bodoni, Didot, or Century. And just like those go-to favorites, Cosmetiqa really shines at the huge, layout-dominating sizes which have been a staple of top-shelf fashion branding and magazine design since at least the mid-1980s. You'll also find this font to be a great workhorse at much smaller sizes and in extended text passages, as the hairline serifs don't disappear in the smaller size ranges. As its title suggests, Cosmetiqa's unique look works perfectly in cosmetics and fashion branding, but also try it with 1990s-style message forward ad headline applications if you're after a retro look with a hint of a modern twist. The semi-condensed proportions and tall x-height make it great for pull quotes, page banners, and logo design.