50 Examples of Vintage Typography

Wow, this is a huge and great collection. Really enjoyed the poster for Bert & Bud’s Vintage Coffins.

This is an amazing collection. I’ve really been into vintage things lately, and this has brought some great inspiration along with it.

Perfect set for some inspiration. Well done, guys.

No examples to be seen, I’m afraid. Only several advertisements so busy with keeping themselves in view that apparently they prevent the real content from showing.

A missed chance. And a failed webdesign. I won’t be back here in a hurry.

Nice collection. I love typography and advertising. A modern use of the “olde style” is on every tin of Altoids. Love their presentation.

Many of these great examples were done by hand by a signwriter.
Especially the movie poster and a lot of the poster ads.

I have always felt that if if was type set by a machine, then it is typography.
If is was hand painted, it is a letter style.

Also each individual signpainter/showcard writer would normally have his own
unique way of rendering a letter style.

What you call “Typograpy” I would call letter styles.

Not a big thing, just trying to keep the dying art of sign painting alive a little while longer.

Nice!…really like the Bert & Bud’s Vintage Coffins poster.

A while back I bumped into this site that has a huge collection of vintage fonts. They’re not free but not overly expensive either.

I’m seeing more and more that companies are reverting to old packaging, or more vintage styles of typography, take a look at Heinz Mayonnaise for example, they’ve changed all of their packets to make them look more traditional.

Fantastic collection..is my dream…I love it!! Thanks for sharing!!!

Very nice collection! I loved the Coffee one.

Casablanca poster is a classic!

this is really nice. i love the designs. i even bookmarked your site.

Great round-up. I love the colours and typography used in the vintage posters and signs!

I still love vintage design, Great collection

I love “Bert & Bud’s Vintage Coffins: Mellow”. So gold, so hot like a coffee foam. Tasty.

inspiration! inspiration!! inspiration!!! All are nice. thanks for your sharing.

Thanks for this sharing, and let me konw so much about typography.

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very nice collection.

Great collection, I love old display typefaces. I’m a little puzzled over the comment (in bold, no less) “the most common use of typography continues to be for ads, store signs, and logos.” No, the most common use of typography is in text for articles and books. I think you might be referring to “display type” is most commonly used in ads, store signs, and logos.

@Tulsa Signs designed: You obviously haven’t studied typography. Please stop assigning your own definitions to words that already have a specific meaning. Seriously, you’ll sound a lot more professional.

Apparently the author of this article and people like “Tulsa Signs designed” need to get some typography books.

I really like the sleepers ad, something about that whole design that really grabs me. Maybe it’s my recent encounter with Bioshock!!!! Love it.

Great post!

Nice!

This is going straight into my bookmarks. As an illustrator and a portraitist I specially love the adverts for domestic products with all the 1940s and 50s hairstyles! Oh, and the type’s pretty cool too…

awesome collection and resources. thank you for posting and sharing.

also worth noting is http://www.pilo.me – it is a typography forum for people interested in type and lettering. i know it is a private community, but if you can get in, it has a wide collection of these fonts and current fonts. wider than i have seen anywhere. i know alejandro paul, font shop and house industries count themselves as members. it is an underground forum, but awesome.

Good compilation of ads. I am digging the Amana ad.

I absolutely love retro typefaces, I often try and incorporate them into new logo and web designs. But you have to get it exactly right else it just looks outdated. Some great examples and inspiration right here!!

The Balthazar Bakery is my favorite. Clean, elegant, draws on vintage typography while making it contemporary.

Awsome! <:

Great stuff in here! But what is up with the “say so long in your Plymouth” ad? It’s like you have all these great, old ads (and a few faux-vintage designs) in the collection, and you slipped in some college kid’s comp homework.

Man, these are sooooo cool. Also makes me wish even more that I lived in the ’20s-’50s.

Very nice! I like the coffee ad ^^

Nice collection!

All those ads are so great. I love them all. They’re so great created.

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Nice list anyway, very interesting

Wow, awesome works… Like them all.

Great post, I love the vintage feel of design and typography

I think we can enjoy seeing these types in web/print design in 2010 having read a few design trend podcasts!

Excellent collection! thanks for posting!

Nice collection! Worthy of praise!

woooowww……….Very nice collection.

No matter how old they are, theirs something so cool about some of these Ads! I particularly like the ones with the three frogs you could easily replace the words “White Star Coffee” with “Bud – Wise – Eaar!”

Very Nice collection! Old is Gold!

really awesome listing here.

Pure awesomeness.

These were the times where typography was a real art and science. Not like today where you can grab all kind of ugly typefaces to “design” your ad…

Excellent post! Please keep up the good work!

That JAZZ PARIS poster is supposed to be from 1970? Odd. The font used to set PARIS is Adobe’s Lithos Regular, but the letters have been squeezed to look narrower. It was designed by Carol Twombly about twenty years *after* the jazz festival being advertised.