Lead Cred

 

It doesn't take much imagination to realize the level of difficulty to create these typographical images featured in a 1940s issue of Design and Paper. They were composed by the master of the typecase, Albert Schiller (1899-1970). Having immigrated to the US from Russia in 1904 with his family, Schiller began working at age 17 at a Harlem print shop and later went on to spend the rest of his career in advertising. He worked for 6 years as a type director at J.Walter Thompson Agency before joining Advertising Agencies Service Co. as an art director. It was during this time he gained international recognition for his inventive type compositions. Shortly after retiring in 1959, he established the Typographic Laboratory as a consulting firm for the advertising industry where he continued with his life's work. 

       Sometimes referred to as typographic illustrations, typotecture, typictures, typosignets, or bildsatz in Germany—they each represent a style of illustration which Albert Schiller popularized in the 1930s. Taking countless hours of design and production, Schiller would paint pictures with lead printer's ornaments and borders, hand-assembling them by trial and error, one cold lead ornament at time. Sometime in the early 1940s he was featured in Design and Paper, No 36, a journal of typography and design published by Marquardt & Company Fine Papers in NYC. (See previous mention of D and P here). Schiller admittedly was inspired by Bruce Rogers masterful use of typographic ornaments, and sent a whimsical birthday poem tribute to his good friend titled King Bruce of "Typelandia" which later became the cover design on the Design and Paper issue. The interior of this issue is filled with many of his signature type ornament illustrations he produced throughout his career working as art director at Advertising Agencies' Service Company, Inc. For more information on Albert Schiller, there is a reprint of an excellent article published on Typocurious a couple of years ago. It was originally published in the Gutenberg-Jarhbuch 1952 (the Gutenberg Yearbook of 1952) and includes many wonderful examples of Schiller's lead creations.

:: From the Letterology Archives

The Ship of Dingbats vs. Das xBoat

Displayed as found without context here.

By R.E.L. in 1934.
:: From Square America via Boing Boing.

Ornamentally Arranged

Some lovely sets of printer's ornamental vignettes can be seen here. They are mostly German wood engravings designed betweem 1590 to 1750. Decorative vignettes, or tailpieces as they were sometimes referred, have historically been used to designate the end of a chapter or book. Typically they were symmetrical designs and often triangular in shape as this gave a more presentable finish to a page of text. I think they look just beautiful as a pattern and want to wallpaper my entire studio with them all.

Valentine Goodness

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

House Numbers

From Roland Hormann's historic walking tour of Vienna, Austria. 

:: From Lincolnian's set of house numbers 1 to 100.

How to Print

1884 printing handbook for a self-inking press.
:: From Jens Jørgen Hansen's photostream

Typograhy Treasures

Hand illustrated type and flourishes from the treasures of the University of Reading's Centre of Ephemera Studies. Curated by Michael Twyman.
:: From Michael Hochleitner's photostream.

Flourished Fraktur

Type designer Dan Reynolds includes this typographic jewel on his Flickr photostream. He explains—this elaborately embellished M is from a 19th C British sketchbook filled with many other romantic lettering samples of work. It was shown to a class of students in the University of Reading's typography program several years ago by retired professor and scholar Michael Twyman, who is now Director of the Centre for Ephemera Studies at the University. Former student and designer Michael Hochleitner, of Typejockey in Vienna, also shared a photo of this same letter and images of Michael Twyman's lecture. Oh how I would have enjoyed sitting in on that session! This is for my type buddies—Joe, John & Juliet. (Team Cap J)

Victorian Idiot Guides

Before the Complete Idiot's Guides there was Hill's Manual of Social and Business Forms, Gaskell's Compendium of Forms, and The Peale Home Library of Useful Knowledge. They were each Victorian etiquette and reference books on everything from penmanship, sign painting, letter writing, accounting and to social behavior at dinner parties. These books were large, heavy and formidable. They looked like they were designed by trade printers who had no restraint when it came to adding decorative border treatments or headers. It became a competition amongst these publishers to see who could produce the most ornate and detailed compendium for the wealthy class in the late 1800s. They were printed on cheap paper with marbled endpapers and leather bindings which are now turning to dust on my bookshelves. You can preview an entire edition of the The Hill's Manual at Internet Archive. And if you are struggling with how to write those letters of thanks for that special Christmas sweater or a nice New Year's note, this might be a good place to start.

No Two Snowflake Fonts Alike

Snowflakes are never out of fashion this time of year—unless you have two feet of white cold snow in your front yard. (Beats two feet of water any day.) The people at If/Then in Seattle got tired of seeing the same old faux snowflakes in Carta (Some are alike I guess) so offered up this OpenType assortment of Northwest Bold Flakes (my own name) for free at If/Then. I don't happen to know the good folks at If/Then, but I think it's a generous thing they have done. Afterall, snowflakes should be in the public domain.

For faux snow of another kind, take a look at this flake font below from Kapitza. These snowflakes are much lighter little dendrites—light like Utah fresh powder—and available for a price, because it's fresh powder.

Bling-Bling

In his visual essay, Iced Up and Platinum Plus, graphic designer Ryan Molloy wittingly references traditional art nouveau and art deco ornamental forms and fuses them with bling-inspired designs of hubcaps, gold teeth and other diamond-encrusted accessories from hip-hop culture. Like a hip-hop DJ, I integrate these older forms with my newly designed bling-inspired ornaments he claims. To demonstrate this, Molloy deliberately borrows a page from traditional book design and creates beautiful decorative borders. I do wish Molloy would release his Bling-Bling font, so the rest of us could do some sampling too.

Alphabet Monogram

Created in 1877, when type designers had more time to kill, this monogram is composed from the entire alphabet. It was reprinted again in a 1952 catalog of Modern Signs and Show Cards by E.C. Matthews. According to the catalog it claims the original drawing measured 7 3/8 x 9 inches. Ripley once drew up a simplified version of it for use in his "Believe it or Not." I have heard that the inventor of the linotype machine went crazy because of the very intricate work involved. But I don't know what became of this modest artist who simply signed the monogram with the initial D. I would love to see a full color version of this reproduced with each letter a different color. Better yet, just have each letter change color as you roll over.