Stencil Package JNL has its design roots in the brand name hand-lettered on the paper sleeves for the short-lived Stencil-It line of lettering guides produced in 1955 as a direct competitor to Stenso Lettering Guides. Formed by Bernie Aronson [a relative of the Libauers who owned the Stenso Lettering Company and who once worked for them] along with a financial partner (noted artist) Sidney Levyne, the company was soon put out of existence by a court action. It re-emerged in 1956 as the E-Z Letter Stencil Company and existed until the 1990s. Stencil Package JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Originally created with cutting in red litho film, as a headlining typeface for Vinyl music magazine. Its geometric structure was very applicable for early type design experiments on the computer. ...in the early 1980s, he (Max Kisman) became the designer of a small, independent music magazine Vinyl. This Amsterdam-based publication was set up very much as a response to the innovative British magazine, The Face. Responding to Neville Brody's radical designs for that magazine, Kisman began to experiment by creating new headline typefaces for each issue... (Emily King. New Faces: type design in the first decade of device-independent digital typesetting. 1987-1997.

Revival 565 is the Bitstream version of type Berling. The face was created by Karl-Erik Forsberg for the Swedish Berling foundry in 1951, with other weights added in 1958. The design is an old style roman, particularly useful for books, journals, and other text applications. Despite the fact that it has higher contrast than most old style typefaces, Berling has the classic features of old style romans with its small x-height, and ascenders that exceed the height of the capital letters. Berling is good for text settings as well as display work. Cyrillic version was developed for ParaType by Manvel Shmavonyan in 2008.

I started to work at the Bernhard Studio in 1952 to 1959 in New York. I helped with some type designs and many other projects, this two tiered signature was added on all of Bernhard’s art that was produced in the past and in his later years. In the 50’s I thought Bernhard’s Gothic face was quite a bit outdated but as you may know it has become one of todays most used faces. His signature is based on his Bernhard Gothic Font. With todays computer technology I have digitized the caps and added lower case glyphs with lower ascenders and other slight changes.

Express® is based on the lettershapes of Express typeface designed for Ludwig & Mayer in 1957 by Walter Hoehnisch. A tall, bold script with even inclination. Cyrillic version developed in 2001 by Natalia Vasilyeva. For use in advertising and display typography.

The extra bold sans serif stencil lettering on movie posters and lobby cards for “Reform School Girl” (a 1957 film by American International Pictures) was the basis of Reform School JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

1950's style casual script.

Twentieth Century was designed and drawn by Sol Hess in the Lanston Monotype drawing office between 1936 and 1947. The first weights were added to the Monotype typeface library in 1959. Twentieth Century is based on geometric shapes which originated in Germany in the early 1920's and became an integral part of the Bauhaus movement of that time. Form and function became the key words, unnecessary decoration was scorned. This clean cut, sans serif with geometric shapes was most appropriate. The lighter weights of the Twentieth Century font family can be used for text setting; the Twentieth Century bold and condensed fonts are suitable for display in headlines and advertising. Commonly spelled 20th Century.

The ITC Blair™ typeface is a revival and reimaging of an early 20th century metal typeface of the same name. Even though only available as single weights of extended and condensed proportions, metal fonts of the face were sold well into the 1950s. In 1997, Jim Spiece resurrected the original extended design for digital imaging and, in the process, added two new weights. Almost 20 years later, he collaborated with Monotype type designers to extend the basic family again. The result was a new suite of three condensed designs and italic complements for all the roman weights. The family also benefits from a large set of alternative glyphs and many OpenType® features.

Candida roman was designed by Jakob Erbar and appeared after his death with the typeface foundry Ludwig & Mayer in Frankfurt am Main in 1936. Due to the original designer’s death, the italic was designed by Walter Höhnisch shortly thereafter. In 1945 the roman was reworked, the breadth of the figures was reduced and the strokes made heavier. The bold weight followed in 1951. Later the typeface was expanded with further weights, which have for the most part fallen out of use. Three weights can still be found in catalogues, available as early as 1937 for the Linotype machine. Candida is a modest text font which retains its legibility even in smaller point sizes.

Aeronic is a work of love. I stumbled upon a fantastic Japanese poster for Nikke Coat by Gihachiro Okuyama (1907 - 1981). Gihachiro Okuyama (also: Okayama) was a very prolific Japanese print artist who started his career making woodblock prints, but later moved on to posters and advertisements. I tried to recreate the hand lettering in the original 1937 Nikke Coat poster, but since I had to work with a few glyphs only, I designed the remaining ones myself. The outline of Aeronic is rather thin, with thicker bits in some glyphs. It is quite rough in places, but it all adds to its unique look. Aeronic comes with a bonanza of diacritics.

Casual script styled after 1950s signage.