Inaayah Cunningham

The above-the-store signage for many newspaper stands, soda shops, candy stores, luncheonettes and pharmacies of the 1950s and early 1960s were what was referred to as “privilege signs” provided by one of the major cola brands.

Consisting of the brand’s emblems on the left and right, the remainder of the sign would carry the desired message of the storekeeper (such as “Candy – Soda – Newspapers”) in prismatic, embossed metal letters.

Inspired by these vintage signs, Privilege Sign JNL recreates the condensed sans serif lettering style in both regular and oblique versions. The typefaces are solid black, but adding a selected color and a prismatic effect from your favorite graphics program can reproduce the look and feel of those old businesses.

A photo of the now closed [circa-1953] Lowell Municipal Pool (at 1601 N. 28th St.) in Boise, Idaho shows the words “Municipal Pool” formed into the cement of the entrance to the above-ground swimming facility.

Both the lettering and building entrance designs harken back to the Art Deco era and the sign features stencil-like characters.

This inspired a typeface aptly named Municipal Pool JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Inspired by the hand lettered opening credits for “(The Many Loves of) Dobie Gillis” – a teen-oriented televisioncomedy that ran from 1959 to 1963 on CBS - Teenagers JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Here’s a novelty font emulating the plastic pennant streamers that were popular in the 1950s and 1960s used to decorate a store parking lot or used car lot for a sales event.

The typeface inside the individual pennants is Manufacturer JNL, which can be used for body copy associated with titles made by this font.

Parking Lot Sale JNL is available in regular (black letters on white pennants) and black (with white letters). A blank pennant for word spacing or end caps is available on the backslash key.

Klangfarbe is a quirky ultramodern script with unique stroke tapers and droplet-like finials. This font is a true chameleon and is very much at home with a variety of looks: from a reimagining of kitschy 1950s scripts, to analog retro-tech, to steampunk, to high-fashion futuristic logos and beyond. Klangfarbe — a German language term meaning “timbre” or “sound color” — references the visual appearance of audio frequency waveforms echoed in many of the lowercase letters. A truly eye-catching choice.