The hand cut wood type which was the inspiration for Wood Nouveau JNL conjures up images of the artistic period between the Victorian Era and 1920s Moderne, as well as the hippie counterculture active in the later part of the 20th Century.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, rock posters, fliers, store signs and other printed ephemera of “the love generation” borrowed heavily from the Art Noveau style in both art and typography. An Alphonse Mucha-inspired flower girl could adorn a concert poster that also combined both vintage wood type and hand-lettered elements.

Although this particular type design might well have preceded the actual start of the Nouveau period, the softer, rounder lines of each character lent themselves well to this emerging style.