Posters advertising transatlantic voyages are among the great icons of Art Deco design. The lettering they used was as majestic as the stylized ocean liners they depicted. Le Havre, named after a French seaport, takes its inspiration from that golden era of sea travel. With its geometrically constructed shapes, compressed capitals and low x-height, it beautifully captures the atmosphere of 1920s and 1930s poster typography while making full use of contemporary technology. One of the best things about Le Havre is its large character set, with charming titling alternates, ligatures, old style figures and a couple of nice maritime icons.

Designer Rob Leuschke is characteristically concise in his description of Babylonica, a “calligraphic, hand-lettered script”. Of course, that casual phrase doesn’t begin to describe the sophistication of this font. Leuschke’s calligraphy is as expressive as it is professional. Babylonica seems to have been jotted down with confident speed, using a hard brush or a reed pen. The rough edges are beautifully rendered and the direction of the strokes is different with each letter, making for a lively, energetic effect on the page. Babylonica will lend personality and drama to your invitation, book cover or wine label.

Decima and Decima+ by Ramiz Guseynov are an interesting pair of condensed sans-serif families. Both are monolinear — i.e. with hardly any variation in stroke thickness. Decima has an upright in three weights, with extremely rational, geometric forms; while its italic has more humanist features, including some shapes borrowed from handwriting. Decima+ (“Plus”) is a clever combination of those two: upright, but with the calligraphic elements of the italic, such as the loops on g, y and z, and some bent terminals. The bold weight has been drawn on the exact same grid as the lighter versions, which makes it a compact and striking face for titling. And if you like that techie look of monospaced fonts, check out Decima Mono.

There seems to be an insatiable appetite for smooth, connected scripts, and Velouté by Robbie de Villiers is one of the most savory recent fonts in its genre. Named after one of the original “mother sauces” in French cuisine, it is a bold and velvety script with delicate, attention-grabbing flourishes. Velouté’s tasty mix of classic, contemporary, bold and delicate detail is great for special invitations, coffee shops, restaurants, boutiques and packaging.