Early 1900s songwriters had a penchant for devising lengthy titles for their compositions. A perfect example from 1909, "It Is Hard to Kiss Your Sweetheart When the Last Kiss Means 'Good Bye'" is a whopping fourteen words long. The sheet music for this piece has a hand lettered, Art Nouveau sans serif design which became the working model for La Vie Nouveau JNL [which translates to "the new life"], and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The Ayes have it! The 1909 specimen catalog from the H. C. Hansen Type Foundry of Boston contained a lovely decorative face named Congress, which is the pattern for this font. It's a winning choice for distinctive headlines, and the uppercase letters are also suitable by themselves for use as decorative initials. The PC Postscript, Truetype and Opentype versions contain the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Linotype Schnitz is part of the Take Type Library, selected from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. Designed by the Finnish artist Osmo Niemi, the characters seem to contain no round forms at all. Linotype Schnitz looks as though it were chiseled and has an angular, almost brittle feel. The restless and lively appearance makes Linotype Schnitz particular well-suited to headlines and shorter texts with point sizes of 12 and larger.

Sheet music from the 1921 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies provided the blueprint for this sparkly, sprightly font. Upper and lowercase characters are identical, with the exception of the letter s, which offers a version of the letter with a big caboose rather than an overbite. Named for David Bowie’s 1972 breakthrough album. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

Linotype Read My Hand is part of the Take Type Library, selected from contestants in Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. It is the digitalized handwriting of its Dutch designer, Leon Hulst. As is common of handwriting fonts, the forms of the letters seem spontaneous and individual. Read My Hand is a dynamic font suitable for texts with point sizes larger than 12 and particularly good for documents which should have a personal touch.

Linotype Gneisenauette is part of the Take Type Library, selected from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. The handwriting font was designed by Latvian artist Gustavs A. Grinbergs and is available in eight weights. Linotype Gneisenauette is a dynamic font which also reflects a bit of the optimistic spirit of the 1950s. The font is best used for headlines or middle length texts with a point size 12 or larger.

BlackWhite is a titling typeface created by Ferdinay Duman in 1989 styled after the designs of the late 1980s. Like the name says, the figures emphasizes the play between dark and light. To this end, most inner spaces have been deleted. The constructed outlines of the robust figures draw the attention. In some weights, Duman split the figures horizontally, giving them a unique look. The technical and mechanical BlackWhite is perfect for generous headlines on fliers or in trendy magazines.

PiS VinoZupa is based on a logo found on an old Serbian bottle of brandy. The vintage 1971 plum fuel burns down your throat and blinds your eyes, the serifs you draw grow bigger and bigger with every sip you take. A Western-style slab serif font, coming from the finest distilleries in an Eastern European village. Features heavy caps with a few alternating glyphs in the lowercase letters and all the nice diacritics you need for super-drunk Serbian babble.

Linotype Venezia Initiale is part of the Take Type Library, selected from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. Designed by German artist Robert Kolben, the font is based on the classic forms of Roman writing in the 1st and 2nd centuries found chiseled on countless buildings and monuments. Linotype Venezia Initiale is a timeless, elegant font particularly well-suited to headlines or as initials in combination with other fonts, working especiall well with sans serif alphabets.

Peter Kin-Fan Lo designed the award winning Linotype Ancient Chinese™ in 1997. It is a symbol font that contains 92 “portraits” of figures who look as if they could have populated ancient China. These portraits are black and white symbols, gathered together into a font. This symbol font may be used for any design piece dealing with history, China, Chinese restaurants, or Asian art. To clearly see all the details, these symbols should be used at larger point sizes.

The goal of this font design was to create forms which could be used and reproduced electronically and remain legible. Technicians from the European Computer Manufacturers’ Association and Adrian Frutiger combined strict mathematical criteria with typographic tradition to solve both technical and aesthetic problems. OCR was the resulting font and was made a world standard in 1973. The font has an objective, technical character and was created specifically for multimedia, although its distinctive appearance has also made it a popular typographical trend.

Linotype Bariton is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. Designer Alexej Chekoulaev designed his font in one weight to mirror the Zeitgeist of the early 1930s. The characters of this extremely bold font are based on the form of a rectangle though its rounded edges soften its look a bit. Linotype Bariton should be used only in larger point sizes in headlines which should really catch the eye.

ITC Cheltenham font in its present form is the work of designer Tony Stan. Originally designed by architect Bertram Goodhue, it was expanded by Morris Fuller Benton and completed by Stan in 1975 with a larger x-height and improved italic details. ITC Cheltenham font is an example of an up-to-date yet classic typeface. In 1993 Ed Benguiat added the Handtooled weights to this family. ITC Cheltenham® font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Lysergic is a smoky, swirly, super-psychedelic font that exudes 1960s vibes. This font is a tribute to the work of San Francisco artist Rick Griffin, famous for his psychedelic posters, creative lettering ideas, and especially his Grateful Dead album cover art. Griffin was a master of ink stippling and that particular drawing technique proves to be a great way to embellish this style of lettering. Set your time machine to 1969 and fire up your grooviest designs with Lysergic.

An image spotted online showed a rendering of a ladies’ fashions storefront that had appeared in the Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Company’s 1939 brochure. The signage consisted of the hand lettered word ‘Apparel’, and was done in a variant of the Art Deco stencil style of lettering that’s most recognizable in Futura Black. From these few sign letters came the inspiration for a digital font of the same name, Apparel JNL – which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The wealth of vintage hand-lettering styles found in a 1941 edition of the Speedball® Lettering Pen instruction book has allowed Jeff Levine to re-draw a number of them in digital format for today's designers. As with other fonts in the Eckhardt Series of sign painter-inspired styles, this font is named in honor of Jeff's good friend Albert Eckhardt, Jr. Al was quite the talented sign writer, and ran Allied Signs in Miami, Florida from 1959 until his passing.

The handmade title on the cover for the 1939 edition of “A Wand’ring Minstrel” [from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado”] was rendered with a round nib lettering pen in an Art Deco style. This type design is now available as Cover Letter JNL in both regular and oblique versions. However, the font’s name is a bit of a pun, as it has nothing to do with cover letters, but rather the lettering found on the cover of the sheet music.

Inspired by the iconic modernist letterforms in the poster for Stephen Sondheim's 1972 musical Company, Another Hundred People is a gleeful set of solid geometric glyphs — as though a set of Colorforms decided to express itself in words. In addition to its lowercase and caps (which don't share a baseline with the lowercase, but hang below it), Another Hundred People has solid alternates (for those who don't like the divided letterforms) and overlapping ligatures! Part of the Ampersand Forest's Sondheim Series.

As usual, I stumbled upon a great 1971 Italian movie poster when looking for something else. The poster for “La Morte Cammina Con I Tacchi Alti” (directed by Luciano Ercoli), was made by an unknown artist and comes with a great font. Cortese was based on this movie poster font, but as I started working on the glyphs, I figured they would even look better in ligatures. So here it is: Cortese font - complete with 135 ligatures, accents and even Greek and Cyrillic!

German type designer Svend Smital created this sans FontFont in 1999. The family has 6 weights, ranging from Regular to Bold in Condensed and Normal and is ideally suited for film and tv and editorial and publishing. FF Super Grotesk provides advanced typographical support with features such as ligatures, alternate characters, case-sensitive forms, fractions, super- and subscript characters, and stylistic alternates. It comes with a complete range of figure set options – oldstyle and lining figures, each in tabular and proportional widths.

Hungarian type designer György Szönyei created this display FontFont in 1999 and extended it in 2010. The family has 11 weights, and is ideally suited for advertising and packaging, logo, branding and creative industries, music and nightlife as well as sports. FF Archian provides advanced typographical support with features such as ligatures, alternate characters, and stylistic alternates. It comes with proportional lining and tabular lining figures. As well as Latin-based languages, Archian Stencil also supports the Cyrillic writing system.

François Boltana was a French prolific lettering artist during the late 20th Century. He created the Stilla typeface in 1973. Stilla is a cursive “Fat Face”-style design, reminiscent of the first large advertising and display types produced in the wake of the successful Bodoni, Didot, and Walbaum text faces. Because of this pedigree, Stilla is the perfect headline choice for applications that look back to the 19th century. Stilla could also be used for very short headlines or big logos.

Linotype Feltpen is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. This fun font was designed by the Swedish artist Lutz Baar with clear, light forms. The spontaneous, even letters seem to have been written with the felt pen from which the font takes its name. Linotype Feltpen is available in two weights, regular and medium, both suitable for short and middle length texts and medium for headlines as well.

Faithfully reproduced from my father’s design drawings made at The Municipal School of Arts and Crafts, Wolverhampton in 1939. Strong nostalgic influences of Art Nouveau and Art Deco. What caught my eye was the consistency with which each particular character was formed: every ‘R’ like every other, every ‘S’ the same. Tight letter spacing and loose word spacing characterised his titling but he didn’t trust himself to print without first ruling guidelines, a hint of which remain in this font.

Linotype Matthia is part of the Take Type Library, which features the winners of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contest from 1994 to 1997. Dieter Kurz designed Matthia as a slender, flowing brush font. Its characters are in a handwritten style yet stand almost straight, making Matthia a mixture of reserved and lively, of static and dynamic. The font is reminiscent of advertisement typefaces popular in the 1950s and extremely versatile, suitable for short texts in small point size or headlines on posters.

This humanistic sans serif design was inspired by a conversation that David Quay had with renowned type designer Hans Meyer, during ATypI in Paris, 1989. Meyer revealed that Sabon, designed by Jan Tschichold, was the inspiration behind his Syntax font. This approach formed the basis for the design development of The Foundry's very first sans serif typeface family; the inspiration for Foundry Sans comes from Stempel Garamond. Foundry Sans was the second typeface to be released for The Foundry typeface library in 1990.

Linotype Dummy is a part of the Take Type Library, chosen from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. The Canadian artist Tad Biernot based the design of his font on optical illusions like those of M. C. Escher. The reader cannot always exactly decide if a character is twisting toward or away or both. Linotype Dummy is available in black and outline weights and is suited exclusively to short headlines in large point sizes.

Architype Universal is a collection of avant-garde typefaces deriving mainly from the work of artists/designers of the inter-war years, whose ideals underpin the design philosophies of the modernist movement in Europe. Their ‘universal’, ‘single alphabet’ theory limits the character sets. Architype Tschichold is a faithful rendering of Jan Tschichold’s 1929 experimental alphabet which was influenced by Bayer’s single-alphabet. His design was never put into production. This re-creates his original geometrically constructed design, including some phonetic characters.

Linotype Graphena is part of the Take Type Library, selected from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. It is a handwriting font designed by the Italian artist Giancarlo Barison. Consciously irregular and erratic, the letters dance across a page, large and small, tilted and erect. Linotype Graphena could be described as angular, restless, even mischievous. It should be set in point sizes no smaller than 12 and is best used for headlines and displays.

Linotype Inky Script is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. This fun fon was designed by the German artist Thomas Schnaeble as a handwriting font with little stroke contrast. The lower case letters are broad with a low x-height. Texts presented in Inky Script have a light, personal touch. Linotype Inky Script is well-suited to headlines as well as short to middle length texts.

This typeface was created in 1972 and reworked by SoftMaker in 2010. Elegant Script Pro is perfect for invitations to weddings, celebrations, and dinner parties. Elegant Script Pro comes with a huge character set that covers not only Western European languages, but also includes Central European, Baltic, Croatian, Slovene, Romanian, and Turkish characters. Case-sensitive punctuation signs for all-caps titles are included as well as many fractions, an extensive set of ligatures, and separate sets of tabular and proportional digits.

The BD Roylac typeface has its roots in some lowercase glyphs drawn by Jacques Loison in 1972. Some of these characters are included in the use of stylistic alternates. Filed under a retro-futuristic design the font separates two filled shapes by a thin and curvy line; sometimes following to the path leaning readability and sometimes interfere with it. The font is dedicated to the BD fanboy Monsieur «Eric de Broche des Combes» aka «Roy La Combe» to his fiftieth anniversary.

American designer Frank Marciuliano created the Linotype Abstract display font in 1997. Abstract's letters are made up of collaged elements: a single letter can contain several different textures. Instead of an upper and lowercase, Linotype Abstract offers two different uppercase alphabets, each with different patterns. Text set in Linotype Abstract takes on the appearance of a cubist painting, making it the perfect font for all of your funky type needs. Linotype Abstract is included in the Take Type 4 collection from Linotype GmbH."

Heirloom grew from an interest of soft and friendly forms from the 1970s, with respect to the time's chill vibes and natural earthy roots. Its refined approachable characteristics allow it to be very readable carry a modern relaxed attitude. Available in 3 weights: Light, Regular and Bold. Any weight can be used as a display type, logotype and/or headlines, and lighter weights would work in bodies of text. The font pairs well with natural, historical or vintage graphic elements.

Taking inspiration from an attempt to marry art with industry of Bauhaus (1919), Brueul Grotesk is classic and straightforward, cutting back superfluous elements. A Sans Serif type, it’s like a design from the Machine Age. It comes in A and B sets to offer end variations—choose the bulbous terminals set if you need a less stern impression. It is then suitable for diverse demands. Brueul Grotesk has A and B sets with 16 weights each, giving you an all-purpose usage typeface.

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.

Linotype Cethubala is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. Designed by the Portuguese artist Patricia Carvalho, it is a playful and unusual font. Its roots lie in the characters of runes and old alphabets and the font is, in the words of the designer, ’an attempt to interpret and carry the knowledge of the magic world.’ Linotype Cethubala is intended exclusively for headlines in large point sizes.

The lettering on the cover of the sheet music for 1919's "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise" was set in a decorative sans serif with an engraved line adorning each character. Reminiscent of the headlines of legal documents, way bills, stock certificates and the like, the digital version of the design was given the name Legal Eagle JNL and is available in both regular and oblique versions. A companion font without the engraved lines is also available as Junior Clerk JNL.

Linotype Bariton is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from contestants of Linotype's International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. Designer Alexei Chekulayev designed his font in one weight to mirror the Zeitgeist of the early 1930s. The characters of this extremely bold font are based on the form of a rectangle though its rounded edges soften its look a bit. Linotype Bariton should be used only in larger point sizes in headlines which should really catch the eye.

Accidents happen. Things go where they don't belong, get changed - remade. Something new crawls out of the murky depths. Ghixm is a retrospective of the horror comics and movie posters of the 1960s and the 1970s. It's fluid forms harken to watery graves and tentacled unnameable horrors. These twisted shapes are reminiscent of titles that will make your skin crawl. It’s already warped and twisted, so don't hesitate to abuse it. This face can take it and still deliver its chaotic message.