Rueben Haigh

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.

Office Staff JNL is a version [with serifs added] of Popularity JNL – a condensed Art Deco design based (for the most part) on a popular typeface known in some foundry books as ‘Radiant’ with some reinterpreted characters… and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A 1942 menu cover for the restaurant at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles features its name in a stylized Art Deco serif design.

This is has been turned into the digital typeface Bill of Fare JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Vintage Comics JNL was inspired by the way the word “comics” was hand lettered on many of the comic book covers of the 1940s, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The hand lettered credits for the 1942 film comedy “I Married a Witch” were so unusual (with their mix of rounded and flat terminals and varying character shapes) that the only logical name for a digital revival would be So Unusual JNL… which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The hand lettered credits for the 1942 film comedy “I Married a Witch” were so unusual (with their mix of rounded and flat terminals and varying character shapes) that the only logical name for a digital revival would be So Unusual JNL… which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

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.”

A vintage New York neon sign for a juice stand advertising “Papaya” was the model and inspiration for Fruit Juice JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A very expanded sans serif font in capital letters inspired by the inscription on a bank note

Old bank notes tend to have a very typical typography. Usually they carry decorative and elaborately designed markings. For one thing, they must be practically impossible to forge and for another, they should make a respectable and legitimate impression. And in the days of copper and steel engravings, that meant nothing less than creating ornate, shaded or otherwise complicated scripts. Designing the appropriate script was literally in the hands of the engraver.

That’s why I noticed this bank note from 1948. It is the first 20 mark bill in the then newly created currency ”Deutsche Mark.“ All other bank notes of the 1948 series show daintier forms of typography with an obvious tendency toward modern face. The 1949 series which followed shortly thereafter reveals the more complicated script as well. For whatever reason, only this 20 mark bill displays this extremely expanded sans serif variation of the otherwise Roman form applied. This peculiarity led me in the year 2010 to create a complete font from the single word ”Banknote.“

Back to those days in the 40’s, the initial edition of DM bank notes was carried out by a special US-American printer who was under pressure of completing on time and whose engravers not only engraved but also designed. So that’s why the bank notes resemble dollars and don’t even look like European currency. That also explains some of the uniquely designed characters when looked at in detail. Especially the almost serif type form on the letters C, G, S and Z, but also L and T owe their look to the ”American touch.“

The ingoFont Banknote 1948 comprises all characters of the Latin typeface according to ISO 8859 for all European languages including Turkish and Baltic languages.

In order to maintain the character of the original, the ”creation“ of lower case letters was waived. This factor doesn’t contribute to legibility, but this kind of type is not intended for long texts anyway; rather, it unfolds its entire attraction when used as a display font, for example on posters.

Banknote 1948 is also very suitable for distortion and other alien techniques, without too much harm being done to the characteristic forms.

With Banknote 1948 ingoFonts discloses a font like scripts which were used in advertising of the 1940’s and 50’s and were popular around the world. But even today the use of this kind of font can be expedient, especially considering how Banknote 1948, for its time of origin, impresses with amazingly modern detail.