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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”.
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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.
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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.
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Intertitle cards from a 1942 newsreel inspired the like-named Newsreel Text JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.
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In the opening scenes of the 1938 Three Stooges comedy “Tassels in the Air” the Stooges are working as maintenance men inside an office building. Their immediate job requirement is to paint the tenants’ business names on the corresponding office doors with pre-cut stencils. Of course, they get it all wrong.
Nonetheless, the stencils appear to be a hand cut sans serif design in a squared or ‘block’ style with rounded corners, and some of the applied lettering made for an interesting challenge to recreate as a typeface.
The end result is Maintenance Stencil JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.
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