small town fonts

a collection of typefaces and fonts used by shops in small towns. Surrounded by the big chains and supermarkets, the small independent shops browse the font catalogs of the world for their signs and posters.

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I can't remember whether I was holding the camera straight, but it shouldn't matter too much for this photograph of The Tipsy Merchant in Budleigh Salterton, Devon.

The portly font is ever-popular Bernard Condensed, which has lost its "h" on the journey from the hand of Lucian Bernhard (1885-1972), a self-taught German graphic artist who was one of the leading developers of a style called Plakatstijl (Posterstyle). This was a form of poster design that incorporated brief powerful statements with a single image.

Underneath looks like a chaser of Andale Mono, a monospaced font more often seen on the screens of computer programmers.

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This sandwich bar (I think it's called "The Wickets"!) in Taunton, Somerset has gone retro for their signage. ... The brush-style font was designed by Peter Dombrezian, who named it Dom Casual.

The font was published in 1951, but it became popular during the 1960s, used often in television credits, like on Bewitched and Barney Miller, as well as 1960-64 Warner Bros. cartoons. In the 1990s it was revived and can still be seen on TV thanks to its casual informality. Shows using Dom Casual includes The Price is Right, Only Fool and Horses, and the game show Bullseye.

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The Caramello Gelato in Exeter, Devon, sports a splendid orange sign set (I think) in Canter, a font from FontFabric designed by Christopher J Lee. The artwork above the place could be a little more attractive, though.

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The Dinosaur Cafe in Exeter, Devon, uses Ed Benguiat's popular retro-style font from 1977-8, a familiar face to readers of this site and now in the news again because of its use in the Netflix supernatural horror show "Stranger Things".

The font is loosely based upon typefaces of the Art Nouveau period.

Ed Benguiat was a jazz drummer, and worked with Stan Kenton and Woody Herman. But, he said:

I’m really a musician, a jazz percussionist. One day I went to the musician’s union to pay dues and I saw all these old people who were playing bar mitzvahs and Greek weddings. It occurred to me that one day that’s going to be me, so I decided to become an illustrator.

As well as his eponymous Benguiat, he designed many fonts for ITC, including Tiffany, and revived some retro gems such as Souvenir and Korinna.

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The Star Coffee bar in Exmouth, Devon, uses the Gigi typeface, designed by Jill Bell in 1995. "Gigi's chic, informal style features an plethora of flourishes and swirls that give it a charming and fresh handwritten quality."

Jill worked in Los Angeles as a calligrapher, sign painter and as a production artist for Saul Bass before going into business for herself. She creates logotypes, icons and hand-lettering for advertising, packaging and entertainment.

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In the sleepy streets of Budleigh Salterton, Devon, you'll catch this glimpse of 1950s chrome Americana on the shop "What Katy Did".

Designer and illustrator Leslie Cabarga produced the Magneto font in 1995 to recall the chrome-strip lettering laid over the rounded shapes of enamelled refrigerators and automobile trunks in the thirties and forties by "a jaunty, self-confident American industry that knew it was going places, doing things, and changing the world" (Myfonts.com).

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This Ice Cream shop in Sidmouth, Devon, uses two reliable standards for their sign.

"Ice Cream" is set in Commercial Script. Script fonts are everywhere these days, but Commercial Script has been with us for over 100 years. It dates from 1906 or thereabouts, and was another creation of the great American type designer Morris Fuller Benton. Benton trained as a mechanic and obtained a degree in engineering, but then switched to type design, at first working with his father, who was also more of an engineer than an artist — it was said of him that "he could see with his hands".

Morris Fuller Benton's typefaces include Franklin Gothic, Cloister, Century Schoolbook, Franklin Gothic, News Gothic, Cheltenham Bank Gothic, Souvenir, Broadway, Stymie, and Hobo — many still in use today.

Chevalier was released by the Haas Type Foundry in Switzerland. In 1946, E. A. Neukomm created the original design - the striped version in all capitals. The engraved, stripe decorations and fat face letterforms were popular trends in 19th century design. They were commonly used on things such as stock certificates and money but were also frequently seen on letterheads and business cards.

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The Lickety Split bike shop in Exeter, Devon is using the Red Circle font.

Red Circle is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Harold Lohner and based upon the 1930s lettering used in packaging and advertising for the range of A&P's Eight O'Clock, Red Circle, and Bokar brands of whole bean arabica coffees. Red Circle is an all uppercase typeface exhibiting the geometric exploration of the Art Deco period.

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Rocketman Fireworks in Taunton, Somerset use (among the many other typefaces in their window) Ashby Black for their logotype.

The Ashby typeface was designed by Robby Woodard in 2001 and published by prolific Canadian type foundry Apostrophic Labs. It looks good even with that rocket-enabled "R".

"POWER AND PYRO" is in the Good Times typeface, which is from another prolific type designer, Ray Larabie, of Typodermic fame, who says that this typeface:

is a 1980’s techno headliner, inspired by the lettering used on Pontiac cars from about 1989-1994....

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Tristan's Restaurant and Wine Bar in Taunton, Somerset, chose two fonts. At the top, "Tristans" uses the interestingly-named Bitch Cakes font, designed by Peter Stanton.

Below, you'll see the typeface called Kristen, a "faux naïve rendering, meant to evoke a child’s handwriting" font designed by New Yorker George Ryan. Kristen was inspired by a handwritten menu came across during an eating excursion in Cambridge.

On the right, the Bride & Groom shop has chosen a more conventional typeface, probably the popular Academy Engraved. Drawn by Letraset’s Vince Whitlock and inspired by the elegant Caslon typeface.

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It's always useful to be able to distinguish between fish and chips and Chinese takeaway, and one way you can do this is by looking at the typeface (there are others...). Here, Smiley's Plaice (Taunton, Somerset) has gone for Times and Arial, whereas China Town uses Ariston.

Martin Wilke, German type designer working for Berthold, drew Ariston in the 1930s, a script typeface used for the quality Ariston cigarette: "Ariston, Germany’s most distinguished, recognized best cigarette".

Times Roman is familiar to most people as the default serif font on PCs for many years. It was originally designed for the Times newspaper in the 1930s.

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The Dave Criddle Travel agency in Taunton, Somerset adopted a font called Oz Handicraft for their main sign.

Oz Handicraft was designed at Bitstream in 1990 by George Ryan. Oz was modelled on Oswald Cooper’s hand lettering found in The Book of Oz Cooper published in 1949 by the Society of Typographic Arts in Chicago.

Oz Cooper — Oswald Bruce Cooper — was a famous type designer in the USA active before and after the First World War. He's perhaps most famous for his font "Cooper Black", already much seen on this blog.

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McFadden & Strasdin in Taunton, Somerset use (or used to use) the Revue typeface. Inspired by posters of the early 1900s, and still very popular in India, apparently, Revue was designed for Letraset in 1968 by Colin Brignall. Revue is a sans serif design characterized by heavy bow-shaped letterforms, strokes that are clipped off at the ends of some capitals, for example the F and H, and an irregular baseline.

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The Uddins Indian restaurant in Taunton, Somerset, looks like it’s served its last dish of Chicken Vindaloo, but the lingering signage has yet to be removed. There’s obviously something faintly oriental about the font, Devinne Swash or Devinne Ornamental, although why that should be is an interesting question.

Devinne Ornamental, which is based on a Deberny & Peignot typeface called Les Modernes from around 1900. The typeface is named after the renowned American printer Theodore Low DeVinne (1828-1914). According to myfonts.com, its style has become synonymous with the Art Noveau period, which was raging internationally when DeVinne Ornamental’s letters were first drawn. The typeface is named after the renowned American printer Theodore Low DeVinne (1828-1914).

Theodore De Vinne was a 19th century printer and publisher. He didn’t design this typeface; Nick Shinn, the typographer and type historian, gives the following quote from De Vinne about the typeface’s inception:

[We] suggested a return to the simplicity of the true old-style character, but with the added features of thicker lines and adjusted proportion in shapes of letters. Mr. St. John approved, but insisted on grotesques to some capital letters in the belief that they would meet a general desire for more quaintness. Mr. Werner of the Central Type Foundry was instructed to draw and cut the proposed face in all sizes from 6- to 72-point, which task he executed with great ability. The name given to this face by Mr. St. John is purely complimentary, for no member of the De Vinne Press has any claim on the style as inventor or designer. Its merits are largely due to Mr. Werner; its few faults of uncouth capitals show a desire to please eccentric tastes and to conform to old usage. The new face found welcome here and abroad; no advertising face of recent production had a greater sale.

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The SandWitch sandwich shop in Taunton, Somerset, uses the spiky Pepita font for its logo.

Pepita was designed by Imre Reiner in 1959. Reiner was a Hungarian painter, designer, and illustrator born in 1900.

The marketing blurb for the font says:

Pepita interprets the flair of the artist's brush into a dazzling cursive typeface. Irregular alignment coupled with a moderate variation in stress endows Pepita with a definite swing. Use Pepita for display in advertising, brochures, books, or anywhere ideas need to be presented with verve.

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"Taunton's Tiny Trends" has taken the Hobo font and run with it - or at least, slanted it over to make it a slightly italic Hobo.

Morris Fuller Benton, one of the great type designers of the 20th century, designed Hobo in 1910 and the font retains something of the flavour of the Art Nouveau period. Its name apparently reflects the slow development of the typeface: it was sketched in the early 1900s, sent to the foundry nameless, and progressed so little for so long, thus earning the name "that old hobo".

I think one reason for its popularity is because there are no descenders on the lower-case letters, which makes it easier to fit into headlines.

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The Honiton Clock Clinic, on New Street in Honiton, Devon, uses the Sexsmith font for the words "CLOCK CLINIC".

In fact, this font does have another name: Euphorigenic S. It was designed by that most prolific of font designers, the legendary Ray Larabie. Here's Ray talking about himself:

I’m Ray Larabie, from Ottawa, Canada. When I was very young, my grandmother brought me stacks of dry-transfer lettering (Letraset) from work. I learned the names of fonts and became an instant font junkie. When I got my first computer, the TRS-80, I got into font editing software and started making my own fonts. After attending a few years of art school, I went to college and got a Classical Animation Diploma. I ended up as an art director in the video game business but never lost my love for fonts. In the late 1990’s, I started making free fonts and releasing them on my site Ray Larabie Freeware Typeface of the Week. I changed the site name to Larabie Fonts and made fonts by the hundreds. In 2001, I started a commercial font venture. Two years later, I was able to quit my day job and work on fonts full time. I moved to Japan in 2008 and I continue making fonts to this day. My company is Typodermic Fonts Inc. based in the city of Nagoya, Japan.