In the days of hand lettering, a common philosophy was “the problem creates the solution”. Often times the layout artist would have to adapt the lettering style to fit the amount of copy on a line.

A perfect example is during the early 1900s, when popular sheet music of the time almost seemed to be competing for how many words could be used within a song’s a title.

One such piece of sheet music offered up the tall, condensed and variable-width lettering found within Narrow Minded JNL.