Lettres

Lettres by Jean Loisy, published in 1948 by Arts et Métiers Graphiques in France, and kindly provided by Michael Newhouse on Flickr. I love this cover design at top, but am seriously angsting over the lack of kerning in between that last pair of lettres. Many more interior pages filled with inspirational hand-lettering examples from 60+ years ago can be seen on his Flickr site.  

Kerning Learning

Learn to kern with KernType. Typographical tutelage brought to you by Mark MacKay and Maria Munuera of Method of Action.
:: Thanks Bonnie!

7 Minute PBS Typography Short

Starring Pentagram partner Paula Scher; type designers Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones; Infographic wizards, Julia Vakser and Deroy Peraza of Hyperakt; and Eddie Opara also of Pentagram. In case you missed this like I did. My only complaint is it's too short.

1948 Czech Type Journal

The typ journal was published in Prague and aimed at the printing industry in Czechoslovakia in the first half of the last century. Featured here are 4 issues from 1948. The articles of each issue are mostly text with small spot illustrations and b&w photos of packaging, advertising and display. The advertisements are generally more interesting than the articles it seems, but the modernist cover designs are the main attraction on each issue. The covers are printed 2 colors, always with spare, but playful use of type and illustration. They used no mainstay masthead for the covers, however the titles on each of the 1948 issues I have were always the same font. You can learn more about the journal and catch a glimpse of a few 1947 issues of typ covers, over at Amassblog. They happen to be a little different style even though they are only one year earlier. 
The Typ 2 cover design above is by Jiří Srb.

Typ 3 cover design by J. Béza.

Typ 5 cover design unknown.

Typ 10 cover design by Jan Tišnovský.

Page of small ads in back of each issue of Typ.

Linotype: The Film Interview Excerpts

"Linotype: The Film" Interview Excerpts from Linotype: The Film on Vimeo.

In honor of the 125th anniversary of the Linotype (July 3rd, 1886) the producers of Linotype: The Film have released a few teaser excerpts of interview footage.

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.

Type Cabinet of Wonder

Oh the stories this sweet little turquoise type cabinet could tell. As seen at the Southeastern Graphics Council International 2011 in St. Louis recently, the largest conference for printmakers in North America. Found on the Serial Machinist via Printeresting.

mid-century typo-graphie

Published in Switzerland in 1957 with text in German, Typo is a landmark book of Swiss design and modern typography. Author and designer Walter Marti did a remarkable job with his layout, design and the compilation of work in this book. It is exquisitely letterpress printed by Schill and Cie of Lucerne, with a laminated and reinforced paper cover and spiral binding. Inside are countless examples of logomarks, letterheads, business cards, labels, bar menus, brochures and bookplates each divided into sections with commentary and production notes all in German. This book makes me happy every time I open it, but I have to wonder, why the large word space in Marti's name on the front cover? You could march a Swiss army through there!
:: From the Letterology Archives

Which Hair Type?

Hair care products come and go. Here are a few that have already passed. I'm guessing the Madame Jones Hair Glory at the top is 1930-ish and the other two are likely from either end of the 1960s decade. My favorite is the calendar of monthly do's from Mr. Rex's Beauty Salon. The easel frame is printed three colors and each month tears off to reveal a calendar girl with a new hairdo. The pink hair net package has a nice mix of brush script fonts and Futura. Mr. Rex? Futura as well.
:: From the Letterology Archives.

Ricard Giralt Miracle Alphabet Book

Miracle has met his match. This is an extraordinary new book by type designer Andreu Balius celebrating the imagination and lovely hand lettering work of Ricard Giralt Miracle (1911-1994). Miracle has long been considered the pioneer of modern graphic design in Spain, but his recognition across the Atlantic is not as widely known. I suspect that is about to change.

Alfabeto imaginario de Ricard Giralt Miracle, designed by Andreu Balius and published by Campgràfic, in Valencia, 2011. You can find a previous Letterology post on some of Miracle's design work here.
:: From Andreu Balius and Issuu

TypeOcentric Ephemera

The designers of these labels and poster stamps probably each did 100s of them in the course of their careers, but it's sad that most have ended up in the dustbin of obscurity and will never receive due credit for their artwork. At least their designs have a legacy and it makes me happy to share them. I've credited the owners in each case. 

Japanese Matchbox Label

:: From Crackdog's photostream

Czech matchbox label for Hotel Jalta in Prague.

:: From Diskurs photostream

1931 German poster stamp, unknown designer. 

:: From Letterology archives 

1964 Hungarian Matchbox Label

:: From Shailesh Chavda photostream

Typographic Alchemy

It's no surprise that my student Joe of The Viatorium Press, discovered the brilliant work of Kristen Haff. He is a big fan of alchemic texts and typography and does his research. I am grateful for the introduction.

Kristen is a recent design graduate from the San Francisco Academy of Art and acquired her first job as a Junior Designer for Viking and Penguin imprints with the Penguin Group in New York City. Included in her portfolio of work is a series of four typography posters titled The Typographer's Stone which she produced several years ago as a school project. The assignment was to reinterpret the text from Robin Williams book, The Mac is Not a Typewriter and visually translate them into spreads. Kristen imagined Williams' text as a series of golden rules for any designer and was granted special permission to produce them as a set of posters for her assignment. Her teacher then suggested she treat them like sacred texts and to consider using different languages in order to give them a more cryptic feel. This inspired her approach of styling them after old alchemy diagrams which often contained vast amounts of information within elaborate structures. (The printers and designers of these old charts and diagrams were the original visual information designers). It is difficult for me to read and authenticate her presentation of the four different diagrams, however they are very beautiful visual displays of typographic hierarchy nonetheless. This is a very difficult and challenging exercise to distill such a vast topic as rules of typographic ettiquette into categories and hierarchies of information and I think Kristen did an amazing performance with visually displaying it all. If she were to revisit them again someday, she tells me she would like to give them each an aged, worn feel. I do hope she considers publishing them as posters or even a fold-out compendium of some kind as I suspect there would be a great deal of interest among information designers and typographers. Kristen has a very bright future ahead of her now in the publishing world and I look forward to seeing more of her book design work in the future. Below is a glimpse of her portfolio of student work.

The History of Printing at a Glance

It's ironic that an exhibition on the history of printing is available only online, but in this case, I am delighted it is available. One of the country's premiere libraries on graphic communication history and practices, The Cary Graphic Arts Collection at the Rochester Institute of Technology, presents the online exhibit, The Printer's Manual, An Illustrated History. There  are 31 images on classic and unusual texts on printing from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Curator David Pankow provides excellent documentation on each item in the exhibit.

The image at the top is from The Printer's Grammer, or Introduction to the Art of Printing, 1808 by Caleb Stower. The bottom image shows some word and letterspacing run amuck in the Scottish text, The History of the Art of Printing, 1713 by James Watson. Pankow describes the work as an extended poetic metaphor on the relationship between God the master printer and the creatures of his creation, symbolized as pages of type. 

Letters of Content

Table of Contents title of an 1860s compendium of music sheets.

From the Letterology Archives.

Mid-19th C Typography

Advertising pages in St. Paul Directory from 1847. I stumbled into this recently at a paper show and the dealer was kind enough to allow me to take some cell phone images of it. He had $375 on it because it had some ads (with no photos) from a famous photographer by the name of Joel Whitney from St. Paul MN in the book. As always, click on images for enlargements.