Inaayah Cunningham

Images of ‘lost’ or forgotten signs from the past are on a number of sites all over the web.

One in particular partially revealed a vintage sign for “J. Yormark Shoes" behind a barbershop sign at 15 – 8th Avenue in New York City. The sign remained until 2014.

The stencil effect made by the formation of the stained glass letters inspired On Your Mark JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. The font’s name is a play on the shoe vendor’s name… “Yormark”.

Unique and decorative signage for many drive-ins, motels, food stores and other businesses of the 1940s had what was referred to as “privilege signs” provided by one of the major cola brands.

Consisting of the brand’s emblem on a decorative panel, the remainder of the sign would carry the desired message of the storekeeper (such as “Drive-In”) in prismatic, embossed metal letters.

Inspired by the Art Deco sans serif style of those vintage signs, Privilege Sign Two JNL recreates the type design 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.

This is a companion font to Privilege Sign JNL, which recreates the condensed sans serif lettering of other privilege signs from

the 1950s and early 1960s.

The thin and stylish Art Deco lettering of a neon sign above the Greyhound bus terminal entrance in a 1930s New York City photo inspired Transit Station JNL, which 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.

A hand lettered emulation of a Roman stencil type face on the cover of the folio for the Stenso School Set was the basis for Eutaw Stencil JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The Stenso School Set (circa 1940-41) was comprised of three stencils – two lettering guides and a map of the [then] 48 United States.

Developed and patented by Baltimore school teacher Ruth Libauer Hormats, her stencils were the first to offer a system for accurate letter spacing and ease of use.

“Eutaw” (as part of the font’s name) is taken from Eutaw Place, the street where Ruth and her husband lived at the time of Stenso’s inception. To the Cherokee, the name means “Creek Indian”.

Pacific Atoll JNL is a stylized slab serif type design based on the movie title lettering for the 1942 wartime film “Pacific Rendezvous”, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

According to Wikipedia, “…an atoll (sometimes known as a coral atoll), is a ring-shaped coral reef, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim.”

Ghost Sign JNL is a spurred serif type design based on the faded lettering of an antique brick wall sign for Homer Hardware [located in Homer, NY] and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

From Wikipedia:

“A ghost sign is an old hand-painted advertising sign that has been preserved on a building for an extended period of time. The sign may be kept for its nostalgic appeal, or simply indifference by the owner.

Ghost signs are found across the world with the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Canada having many surviving examples. Ghost signs are also called fading ads or brickads. In many cases these are advertisements painted on brick that remained over time. Old painted advertisements are occasionally discovered upon demolition of later-built adjoining structures. Throughout rural areas, old barn advertisements continue to promote defunct brands and quaint roadside attractions.

Many ghost signs from the 1890s to 1960s are still visible. Such signs were most commonly used in the decades before the Great Depression.

Ghost signs were originally painted with oil-based house paints. The paint that has survived the test of time most likely contains lead, which keeps it strongly adhered to the masonry surface. Ghost signs were often preserved through repainting the entire sign since the colors often fade over time. When ownership changed, a new sign would be painted over the old one.”

A thin Roman typeface with slab serifs shown in various editions of the American Type Founders’ Specimen Book as either Lining Antique or Lining Central Antique was the model for Specimen Book JNL which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

This is the 1700th design released by Jeff Levine Fonts since its inception in January, 2006 and was named Specimen Book JNL to celebrate the era when metal type and letterpress were the modern technology of their time.

Town Meeting JNL (available in both regular and oblique versions) is a modified version of Mud Creek JNL (which was based on Tuscan Egyptian – a classic wood type).  The side spurs were removed and the split serifs were replaced by slab serifs.

“News Gothic” has been a reliable workhorse of a font since it was created by Morris Fuller Benton and first offered for sale in 1908 by American Type Founders.  

A clean, legible design used for text copy, it can also double as a light headline face.

This reinterpretation (named Columnist JNL) is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Wood Clarendon JNL is based on Hamilton Clarendon Condensed (circa 1899) and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The design of this typeface retains many of the charming (but slight) design irregularities often found within pantograph-cut wood type from the 1800s through the early 1900s.

Manufacturer JNL is a reinterpretation of the classic type face Venus Extra Bold Extended, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

According to Wikipedia:

“Venus or Venus-Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface family released by the Bauer Type Foundry of Frankfurt am Main, Germany from1907 onwards. Released in a large range of styles, including condensed and extended weights, it was very popular in the early-to-mid twentieth century. It was exported to other countries, notably the United States, where it was distributed by Bauer Alphabets Inc, the U.S. branch of the firm.”

This reinterpretation of Caslon Rounded showcases one of the early attempts of type foundries to create a novelty ‘rounded’ typeface for general use.

While the lettering might easily convey a more modern look of 1960s or 1970s pop typography, its roots definitely lay in the later part of the 19th Century and the heyday of wood type design.

Wood Rounded JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.