The History of Fireworks at a Glance

Pyrotechnics: A History of Fireworks by Captain Alan St. Hill Brock.
:: From The Fireworks Virtual Museum in Plymouth, England.

Above: The Standard display fireworks team from Jubilee Fireworks.  

The Unexcelled Fireworks Company brochure from 1887 featuring a huge range of fireworks and novelty products, including the amazing Fireworks balloons. The Bogardus shells were manufactured to be fired from shotguns and were, in effect, miniature shells.
:: From Jubilee Fireworks

May the 4th be With You

Pyrotechnists is such a great word for people who work with fire.
By that same token, I suppose people who work with type could be called typotechnists?
       I'm not certain if this image is from an ad, poster, or a broadside, but it is curious they advertise their fire works exhibitions can be had on short notice. After some quick googling I learned they once killed a woman at one of their exhibitions in 1856 after a "mis-directed flight of rockets". When asked by a friend how the event went, Sanderson replied "All right, but we killed one woman," as though it was of little consequence. A few months later, the city of Charlestown where the event was held, later settled with the woman's husband for $1000. Soon after, he married again. Well that's a cheery 4th of July story!
       It's the beginning of a long, sunny weekend here. Hope the same for all of you!
:: Sanderson & Lanergan print from the Library of Congress digital archives.

Ode to Mom

These typographical songsheets of American ballads go out to all the Mom's who taught us the ABCs. They are all from the Duke University Collection of Historic American Songsheets from the 1850s to 1920s. These elaborately designed title pages with decorative flourishes and hand-lettering were the style of that day and skilled artists were employed to design and print them as lithographs. All of the motherly music sheets featured here happen to be from the 1850s.

 
This dour ballad above is from the mid 19th century, and has a lovely decorative cap I. Sorry to offend any balladiers out there, but I just cannot understand who wrote this stuff or why it was ever popular. I cannot imagine any of these sentimental ballads measuring in any way up to the elaborate hand-lettering featured on their lovely lithographed title pages. They are really works of art. I suppose many of the songs were written in hard times during the American Civil War era, but did they have to be so dreadful? This music was popularized during that time by a well-to-do class who had a piano in their parlor, and took apparent pleasure from singing many of the virtuous melodies. Publishers eventually began to sell nicely bound catalogs of this sheet music with custom-stamped names to patrons who could afford them. I have found several of these large books in years past and intend to display some of the images from them on another day. They are quite wonderful type specimens for study.

This song title above is pathetic, but the typography is exquisite.


Lovely type, grim title. Even so, to all mother's here with us and in spirit! We celebrate you!

The Presidential Letters

Presidential ascii artwork by none other than typewriter artists working with a single monospaced typeface. Nathan Veach's illustration of Abraham Lincoln is featured with only the letters of his name. A typewriter portrait of George W. (not that one), whose birthday we are celebrating today, is featured in a 1939 Popular Science magazine. An interesting sidenote—this is the same issue that reports an exclusive on Vest-Pocket Telephones. They predict telephones without connecting wires will be a possibility in the near future. I'm not kidding. Popular Science gets a scoop on this nearly 72 years ago.

2011 Valentine from Marian Bantjes

Every year designer Marian Bantjes creates a beautiful Valentine to send to a select group of people in her life. This year she produced multiples of a modular Valentine design so her friends might then be encouraged to further exchange them with others. In total, she produced 10 colorful variations to share, but I suspect the receiver may hoard them all as they are so wonderful. Below is a short video about her design process which Lynda.com documented recently. You can find links to past Valentines and read more about her process here. I'm still searching for her opt-in mailing list link.

Feel the Book Love

  

Just yesterday I learned of a tradition in Spain to give books to your sweetheart on Valentine's Day. What a splendid idea. Does anyone know if this is true?

Here are some older book covers designed with heart. From the top }
L'Amour from the Peter Pauper Press, 1957. Cover and illustration by Ruth McCrea. One of my favorites from this press.
Love against Hate from Harvest Books, 1959. Cover design by Paul Rand. He made this cover look effortless, which was why he was so great. ::Via Scott Lindberg.
Cards of Identity from Meridian Fiction, 1960. Cover design by Rudolph de Harak. Just a simple suggestion of a heart, but such a lovely cover design. ::Via Journey Around My Skull.
The Heart of a Dog from Junior Deluxe Editions, 1957. Illustrated by Marguerite Kirmse. ::Via Scott Lindberg.
The Wisdom of the Heart from New Directions Paperback, 1960 edition. Cover design by Chermayoff & Geismar Associates. ::Via Mark Sullo.

Design With Heart

From the top } Lace Heart letterpress print from Hijiri Shepherd of Heartfish Press.

Loveletters from Sabine Timm's photostream.

One of many one-off valentines I've made. 

E for Embrace by Paul Thurlby.

A delicate cut paper artwork of Robert Ryan.

Painted heart from Cassia Beck's photostream. 

Valentine Goodness

Valentine goodness from Bell'occhio in San Francisco. Above } cotton trim of Bodoni ornaments. Below } scalloped paper hearts. 

Happy Birthday Mr. Lincoln

Top: Paperback cover design by Jacqueline Schuman, 1966

2nd: Paperback design by David Pearson for Penguin's Great Ideas Series 4 , 2009.

No. C: Frank Chimero's mash-up of his 2 favorite men who can do no wrong.  

Year of the Rabbit

This Chinese New Year broadside curiously landed on my doorstep the other morning. A very pleasant surprise from my friend Juliet Shen. Printed 2/c letterpress with perf and a quote by A.A. Milne. Juliet teaches typography at the wonderful School of Visual Concepts in Seattle. She recently released a brand new font called Bullen, named after Henry Lewis Bullen, an influential printer and librarian. It is inspired by some of the great old ATF fonts of the early 20th Century and available from The Font Bureau. Thanks Juliet!

Happy New Year Reading

Victorian greeting card via The Private Library.

A Winter Love Story

I somehow missed this fuzzy flocked poster when it first premiered over at FPO last month. Still worth repeating. It was designed by Mette Hornung Rankin of Bureau of Betterment as a self-promotion. She came up with an idea of producing a nordic knitted story about a love-struck moose which evolved into this lovely poster designed in Illustrator. It was flocked with white and glitter flocking by Great Lakes Flocking. You can read more about her production process here and posters can be purchased the Bureau of Betterment Shop.

Table Dancing

Every time I watch this clip it makes me smile. Chaplin was a genius. Enjoy and Happy New Year all!

Story Time

A Hell of a Good Time via PopKulture.
The Evil of Time via S.Wallace.
The Time Machine (Classics Illustrated) via Michael Vance.
The Time Machine via Austin Gullixson.
Gift of Time via Christian Montone.
Cover and page spread from How Long is it? via Hillary Lang.

To Bring Back the Clocks of Time

It is after midnight somewhere.
Happy New Year all from the Letterology management!























































































































Nelson clocks via Joel Pirela.
Old clock via Judy Watt.
Cuckoo clock via Monica Z.
Swiss made clock via Bob AuBuchon.
Story Time via Erin Reynolds.
Peter Pan clock via doe c doe.
Tick Tock clock via Vintage Takout.