Tenement

A 1916 book entitled “Lettering” by Thomas Woods Stevens features a number of hand lettered alphabets; some plain, others unique. One of the more novel examples was designed by Harry Lawrence Gage and featured letters and numbers with a crude, wavy style described in the book as “adapted to wood block and linoleum cutting”.

To keep the design as close to the original as possible, the image from the book page was auto-traced, with each character given just enough of a clean-up as to retain its own quirkiness while smoothing out any jagged lines and fixing some curves.

From there, other necessary characters were created for the digital font, and the end result is Tenement JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Tags
boldcasualchunkycondenseddecorativedisplay fontfriendlyheavyheavy weightobliqueplayfulretro-inspiredroundedrounded edgessoft edgesthick strokesvintage feel