Mid-century display fonts from the 1950s to the 1970s
Bouncing, hand-lettered display faces after post-war advertising, cartoons, motel signs and record covers.
Atomic Lounge
Post-war advertising lettering had a spring in its step. Letters tilted left and right, jumped above and below the baseline, and swelled at the ends of their strokes; serifs became sharp little wedges or disappeared. It was drawn by hand for each job, and the irregularity was the charm. Display fonts in this style bottle that looseness.
The decades are distinguishable if you look. Fifties lettering is bouncy and optimistic, with wedge serifs, starbursts and boomerang curves, the vocabulary of diners, bowling alleys and household gadgets. The sixties bring psychedelic curls and mod geometry. By the seventies, heavy brush italics and tight, fat lettering dominate LP sleeves and film posters. The notes below give the source each font names in its record.
Use these as accents. They carry so much flavor that a single headline is enough to set a period mood for a whole poster, menu or package; body text should be something neutral. Most come in one weight and many have limited character sets, so check accented letters if you work in languages other than English. Vary sizes and angles line by line, as the original lettering artists did.
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Fontdiner Swanky
Bouncing letters with spiked wedge serifs and stems that each lean their own way, in a style its foundry ties to the Atomic Age.
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Cherry Cream Soda
Extra-wide letters that recall 1950s soda-fountain lettering.
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Luckiest Guy
Bouncing heavyweight capitals drawn from 1950s advertising.
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Atomic Age
Squared, mechanical letters taken from 1950s American car nameplate scripts.
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Life Savers
Thin slab serifs and ball terminals modeled on hand-lettered 1950s candy advertisements, in Regular, Bold and ExtraBold.
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Carter One
A heavy, forward-leaning face reworking the informal lettering of mid-century advertisements and pulp paperbacks.
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Sigmar One
Ultra-heavy casual letters after mid-century pulp advertising.
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Boogaloo
Narrow brush lettering recalling 1960s Latin music record sleeves.
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Oregano
Brush-drawn cartoon lettering in a manner seen in advertisements from the late 1940s through the 1960s, in Regular and Italic.
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Salsa
Heavy brush strokes built on an upright cursive, inspired by 1970s LP covers.
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Original Surfer
A flared, offbeat display sans taken from a vintage caravan park advertisement.
Samples load a basic Latin subset of each family. Every family here carries an open license; its page states the terms and offers the original files.
Questions about mid-century display fonts from the 1950s to the 1970s
What is the difference between retro and vintage fonts?
Usage varies, but vintage often points to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century printing styles, while retro usually means the post-war decades. This collection covers the latter.
What body font goes with a mid-century headline?
A plain geometric or grotesque sans, which is what the period itself used for small print. Keep it light so the headline provides the color.
Can I use these fonts for commercial packaging and posters?
Yes. They are under the SIL Open Font License or the Apache License 2.0, and both allow commercial use. Keep the license text that comes with each download.