One of the charming features of vintage wood type is the unusual interplay of stroke widths or letter shapes that can vary from character to character. In today's world of digital perfection, a set of letters, numbers and punctuation marks must conform to rigid standards of uniform lines, balanced curves and other form-and-function rules that has often removed the human feel from the overall type design. While this is fine when applied to most text fonts and some modern display faces, Old Wood JNL is a simple throwback to an earlier time when type design was an artistic, not engineering endeavor. Modeled in part from vintage source material, this wood type design retains that charming imperfection of a time long passed.

Once I had a young, very eager and interested designer in my employ. We got into talking about where our letterforms come from and the habits in perception we are used to. He did not quite believe me. So I said, let's try to design a typeface where everything is just the opposite of what we are used to. We really had a hard time, our habits crept up on us all the time. But after a couple of weeks we finally finished this typeface and wanted to call it crazytype, but my young apprentice ­ who did most of the manual labor ­ said Contype sounded crazier. So it became Contype and it's really crazy, with a small asian touch to it. Yours very crazy Gert Wiescher

Fontology-E is an experimental font designed by Fabrizio Schiavi. It was created for the cover of the Fontology catalogue. Schiavi's need was to build an optical false modulation effect with versions of the logotype and typical rectangles of an empty font chart. The basic idea was to create a page that contained many rectangles in order to demonstrate the modulation. At the same time, it was important to understand that Schiavi inserted 8 versions of the same logotype each time the corresponding letter is digitized in e, a, d, f, g, h, c and b. The inside of the catalogue has the same layout and text, which is revealed by fanning the pages. Schiavi confess that Fontology-E is a highly experimental typefont.

Guided tour available here. Port Vintage is a new typeface expanded upon the original Port typeface, released in 2013, and being an experimental Didone typeface with a modern twist, inspired by the well known forms of typography masters such as Bodoni and Didot and the exuberance and elegance of calligraphy typefaces. A lot of changes were made, the whole typeface is now softer and has less rough edges, the time it took to mature made it possible to achieve an entirelly new and distinct flavour from the original Port, giving away the rough edges from Port and giving place to the soft transitions and curved connections between the stems and serifs of Port Vintage. Port Vintage melts the straight lines and strong contrasts of the Didone typefaces with the elegant lines of calligraphy in a geometric way, resulting in exuberant characters with geometric swashes that can be combined in countless ways. The result of this experiment is Port Vintage, an unique and rich display typeface meant to be used on big sizes and it’s main perk is the amount of alternative characters it features. Port Vintage is Open-Type programmed and includes hundreds of alternates, from swashes to titling alternates, ligatures and stylistic sets with each character having a thin version of itself, giving complete freedom to all your creative needs. Port Vintage is available in 10 different styles: Port Vintage Regular, being the base version and featuring the whole base character set; Port Vintage Regular Decorated, featuring richer forms and containing more ornamentated and more extravagant characters; Port Vintage Medium and Port Vintage Medium Decorated, designed for the occasions you need a bit more thickness and the decoration variants: Port Vintage Ornaments, containing a wide set of elements meant for the creation of fillets, vignettes and fleurons, resulting in an almost infinite number of possible combinations to embellish your designs and Port Vintage Words, a set of some of the most common words used in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese. All styles, except Port Vintage Ornaments and Port Vintage Words, include italic styles. For a better understanding of all the uses of Port Vintage and the full character list the reading of the manual is recommended.

Plantin is a family of text typefaces created by Monotype in 1913. Their namesake, Christophe Plantin (Christoffel Plantijn in Dutch), was born in France during the year 1520. In 1549, he moved to Antwerp, located in present-day Belgium. There he began printing in 1555. For a brief time, he also worked at the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands. Typefaces used in Christophe Plantin's books inspired future typographic developments. In 1913, the English Monotype Corporation's manager Frank Hinman Pierpont directed the Plantin revival. Based on 16th century specimens from the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, specifically a type cut by Robert Granjon and a separate cursive Italic, the Plantin" typeface was conceived. Plantin was drawn for use in mechanical typesetting on the international publishing markets. Plantin, and the historical models that inspired it, are old-style typefaces in the French manner, but with x-height that are larger than those found in Claude Garamond's work. Plantin would go on to influence another Monotype design, Times New Roman. Stanley Morison and Victor Larent used Plantin as a reference during that typeface's cutting. Like Garamond, Plantin is exceptionally legible and makes a classic, elegant impression. Plantin is indeed a remarkably accommodating type face. The firm modelling of the strokes and the serifs in the letters make the mass appearance stronger than usual; the absence of thin elements ensures a good result on coated papers; and the compact structure of the letters, without loss of size makes Plantin one of the economical faces in use. In short, it is essentially an all-purpose face, excellent for periodical or jobbing work, and very effective in many sorts of book and magazine publishing. Plantin's Bold weight was especially optimized to provide ample contrast: bulkiness was avoided by introducing a slight sharpening to the serifs' forms."

Art into type In 2008, Fontsmith were approached by their friend, Jon Scott, to investigate whether a typeface could assume the aesthetic of one artist’s body of work. Jon’s not-for-profit charity, Measure, was organising an event for the artist, Conrad Shawcross, whose giant mechanical installation, entitled Chord, was going on public display in the long-disused Kingsway tram tunnel in Holborn. Chord explores the way we perceive time, as either a line or a cycle. Two enormous machines with dozens of rotating arms and moving in opposite directions, weave rope with almost infinite slowness. An unusual brief Phil Garnham visited Conrad in his Hackney studio to get a feel for his work and ideas. “Conrad is a very clever and philosophical guy. He struggled to see how typeface design had any relevance to him and his art. This was going to be a challenge.” The artist presented the type designer with a pile of rope and a huge diagram of sketches and mathematical workings. “This was, in essence, my brief.” Phil developed three concepts, the simplest of which ticked all the boxes. “The idea of the strokes in the letterforms appearing and ending at peaks or points of origin fitted perfectly with Conrad’s idea of time occurring and ending at two ends of the sculpture.” Two versions Phil planned modules for two versions of the typeface: one with five lines in the letterforms and one with seven. He then drew the modules on-screen and twisted and turned them to build the machine that is FS Conrad. “This is not a simple headline typeface,” says Phil. “It’s not a rigid structure. It has varying character widths, and it’s informed by real typographic insight and proportions so that it actually works as piece of functioning, harmonious type.”

Plantin is a family of text typefaces created by Monotype in 1913. Their namesake, Christophe Plantin (Christoffel Plantijn in Dutch), was born in France during the year 1520. In 1549, he moved to Antwerp, located in present-day Belgium. There he began printing in 1555. For a brief time, he also worked at the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands. Typefaces used in Christophe Plantin's books inspired future typographic developments. In 1913, the English Monotype Corporation's manager Frank Hinman Pierpont directed the Plantin revival. Based on 16th century specimens from the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, specifically a type cut by Robert Granjon and a separate cursive Italic, the Plantin" typeface was conceived. Plantin was drawn for use in mechanical typesetting on the international publishing markets. Plantin, and the historical models that inspired it, are old-style typefaces in the French manner, but with x-height that are larger than those found in Claude Garamond's work. Plantin would go on to influence another Monotype design, Times New Roman. Stanley Morison and Victor Larent used Plantin as a reference during that typeface's cutting. Like Garamond, Plantin is exceptionally legible and makes a classic, elegant impression. Plantin is indeed a remarkably accommodating type face. The firm modelling of the strokes and the serifs in the letters make the mass appearance stronger than usual; the absence of thin elements ensures a good result on coated papers; and the compact structure of the letters, without loss of size makes Plantin one of the economical faces in use. In short, it is essentially an all-purpose face, excellent for periodical or jobbing work, and very effective in many sorts of book and magazine publishing. Plantin's Bold weight was especially optimized to provide ample contrast: bulkiness was avoided by introducing a slight sharpening to the serifs' forms."

A rounded slab in 4 styles In our age, since the arrival of microcomputing, the majority of professional letters have been composed in quality typefaces. Typewriters & the typestyles they used have become antiques. A letter set in Times or Helvetica & printed with a laser printer at 600 dpi or more are of such quality that one can no longer distinguish it with a document produced by offset printing. But letters composed in this way appear overly institutional when a bit of informality is needed. Le Monde Courrier, designed by Jean François Porchez, attempts to re-establish a style halfway between writing and printing. Informal neo-tech style This rounded slab serif returns the informal character of “typewritten” fonts to letters and suit well all bad conditions, from inkjet printed memos to webfonts use. With a unique typographic colour, it integrate itself with the rest of the Le Monde family with effective contrast. The verticals metrics and proportions of Le Monde Courrier are calibrated to match perfectly others Typofonderie families. Bukva:raz 2001 Type Directors Club .44 1998 European Design Awards 1998

In most cities during the 1950s and 1960s the corner pharmacy or soda shop was a mainstay of teenage life. It was a place to hang out with friends, hear the latest hits on the jukebox and indulge in everything sugary from malted milkshakes to banana splits. During this time, a popular form of window advertising was supplied by the Coca-Cola Company to promote its product being served by these locations. Specialty window decals designed to emulate drawn (raised) Venetian blinds "bookmarked" by the soda's logo were adhered to the shop's windows, with a space provided to add in customized lettering. The store's name or its specialties were applied to each window pane, and this formed a consistent border at the top of all of the shop's windows. Although few visual images exist of this specific bit of advertising nostalgia, an old record album by a late-1950s singer named Chip Fisher called "Chipper at the Sugar Bowl" provided a somewhat usable sample for what is now Soda Fountain JNL.

One of the most unusual sets of antique stencils spotted for sale online comprises a set of twenty-four classic logos of early 20th Century automobile companies. For whatever purpose that is now lost to time, these stencils represented the logos of many of America's finest auto manufacturers; most now just historical memories. The logos were painstakingly redrawn, maintaining the distinctive look of the hand made cutting, although it was an exacting process - some of the images were taken at an angle, and a bit of artistic license had to be used as a compensatory factor. It is to be noted that any and all of the logos presented in this font are the intellectual property of the companies, successors or assignees that may still hold the rights to these symbols. No endorsements by such corporate entities are either expressed or implied. Additionally, it is advised that any use of these logos be restricted to historical or hobby purposes, and they should not be used in a way that would construe any authorized reproduction of the logos in a commercial fashion.

I do a lot of taller, narrower handwriting fonts; this time around, I was inspired to make a wider, shorter handwriting font! MUGGSY has everything you expect from one of my fonts: clean and smooth curves, a full set of alternates, and a feeling of fun! MUGGSY has two uppercase-height alphabets (with a few lowercase-style letters like a and e in the lowercase set), plus a full set of 63 "smallternates" -- the same letters, numbers, and ampersand sized down to 75%, and beefed up in weight so they can be mixed in with the full-size letters. Plus 30 double-letter ligature sets, and a few additional alternates for variety! You also get a ton of punctuation, and my usual 300+ extended Latin characters for language support, for a total of over 600 glyphs! And just because you may want things a bit heavier, I've also made Muggsy Heavy, a bolder weight of Muggsy with all of the same alternates and extras. Enjoy, my fonty friends!

Penfriend is playful single weight script typeface. Joined, a bit bouncy and grungy, with picked set of dingbats.

Vaudeville JNL started out as the re-drawing of an angular Art Deco font hand-lettered on some old publications for sale online. After completing the basic alphabet, it was realized that it just didn't look good -- so a more traditional letter form was adapted to represent the style and times.

Film Noir JNL is a classic Art Deco Alphabet from the brush of the late master sign painter Alf R. Becker, and appeared in Signs of the Times Magazine. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Media and the American Sign Museum for providing the reference material to make this font.

Welcome Home JNL gets its inspiration from metal letters and numbers affixed to homes, posts and mailboxes in the 1920s and 1930s. The block style of lettering that was silk screened onto enameled rectangles of steel was especially popular during that time period. This font has a limited character set.

Warren Chappell named his font after the Roman emperor Trajanus, who ruled in the first century AD. The Roman capitals on Trajanus’ memorial combined with the lower case style from the time of Charlemagne formed the models for the font characters. Trajanus will give a text a classic, almost calligraphic, feel.

The Symbol PS font contains Times New Roman Greek capitals and lowercase, figures and basic punctuation together with a collection of mathematical signs and general purpose Pi characters. Use the Symbol PS font for setting mathematical and scientific work and as a complement to the symbols found in standard fonts.

Here's a simple little retro font that got its inspiration from a food vending truck pictured in a local newspaper's online article. Fun and retro, Food Vendor JNL evokes simpler times. The font is a basic character set, with a blank diamond on the equal sign keystroke for spacing or embellishment.

What's the hurry? Take your time! Take the first step with your Slow Foot and something (good) will show! :) A fun font with contextual alternates that leaves you with 6 different versions of each letter. That's really nice when you want to spice up the variation of letters as you write.

Albion’s old Masthead is inspired by traditional newspaper mastheads. A heavy Black Letter which brooks no argument, and can be emphatic and refined (emphatically refined?) at the same time. Ideal for signage with a ‘period’ feel, book covers, posters and banners. Why not add something solid to your latest project…

The faces of IanSegoe were early attempts by IngrimayneType to construct medieval-looking faces. They drew inspiration from several medieval-themed fonts that were available at the time (1990). The upper-case letters are similar but not identical in the two faces but the lower-case letters are completely different.

If there s a back-story about the design inspiration for Modern Appliances JNL, it's lost to time. An unfinished design for quite a while, this clean sans with an Art Deco flair was recently completed, and the design quality should speak more for its appeal than any promotional blurb.

A Splashy font inspired by all things liquid and wet, the goal was to create a fun and realistic representation of water in the form of a letter. Water parks, Juice bars, your backyard pool party or your box of fresh squeezed orange juice, any time you need a good splash.

At one time very recently, serifs were lost to the design sinners of the world. Now see them found again. Unearthed and rediscovered. Retribution is not far off. We have been unchained from the belief that gothics have provided us no way back from a lack of variety and interest.

Palestina is a sans serif font designed for reading texts and inspired in the condensed Trade Gothic font, which features a strong influence from the time of metal foundry-based typography. The characteristic of its design is easily recognizable and very stable to use for titles and newspaper and magazine headlines.

Classy look font of Qanoar. a modern serif font family that drawn inspiration from elegant, modern, but classic at the same time. just have a look at this beautiful handcrafted serif typeface. Use it for logo, design, branding, and many more. Complete with ligatures alternates regular italic icon kerning multilingual support

CCS Monterio sans is a all-caps sans serif contemporary Art Deco typographic style , If you're into classic/vintage letter designs, then this typeface suits best for you. Packed with 300+ glyphs (alternate and multilingual characters included), now it’s your time to go crazy and explore the uniqueness of this typeface!

Udon Soupis my all time favourite Japanese food! I like it so much that I decided to name a font after it. Udon Soup font is a handmade script font, kind of messy, kind of weird, but very legible and useful. Comes with oodles of diacritics and double letter ligatures.

Hagenbeck is an old style font face with the intention to get really bold. It's a design from 2019, drawn during a rainy stay in the eponymous district in Hamburg, the designers ‘hood for a long time. There is the bold weight and a decorative stamped version of this font face.

The Bull Stand Victorian typeface is characterized by its intricate detailing, ornate serifs, and elaborate curves. The letters are designed with a fine balance between boldness and delicacy, capturing the essence of Victorian elegance. The typeface showcases the artistic craftsmanship of the time, reflecting the meticulous attention paid to typographic design.

Choc is the work of French designer Roger Excoffon, based on the traditions of Japanese brush calligraphy, thick yet graceful. Choc light was designed by Phil Grimshaw, who had to redraw many times in different weights before finding one that worked as a text face and remained true to the original.

This rollicking fun face is based on legendary lettering artist Alf Becker's Super Thick-and-Thin, his twenty-third offering in "Signs of the Times" magazine. The package includes two fonts: a full Adobe Standard character set, and an Alternates version, which features the more extreme elements of Becker's original design.

Schwager sans is the new version of Schwager. This time with a fresher taste, retaining the same principles of structure, geometry and modernist aesthetics in a contemporary reinterpretation. Designed especially for use in titles, reveals concepts associated with masculinity, technology or sports, perfect for application in cover design, logos, web.

Merry Snowmen is a piece of winter fun-is a set of hand-drawn snowwmen figures, ideal for Christmas or any other time when cold and snow are about. It complements our Merry Fleurons and Christmas Fleurons faces, and is ideal for all your cards, gift labels, invitations, posters and banners.

Biliner Meclan is a Minimalist Sans, use this font for any branding, product packaging, invitation, fashion, label, poster, logo etc. Feature Uppercase & Lowercase Number & Symbol International Glyphs Multilingual support Alternative Ligature Feel free to drop us a message any time and follow my shop for upcoming updates Hope you enjoy it.

Freaky Prickle script was written using ink and various wooden sticks and digitized/ Autor’s target was to create the spontaneous, light, flying script with dynamics and energy at the same time. Upright and cursive styles are available. The type was planned for use as headline in fiction and display matter.

Tuskcandy is a decorative Tuscan font in which the prominent split serifs are made of two balls. It is available in two weights and also an inline style. It has a nineteenth century feel to it though it is not a copy of any particular font from that time period.