Less is Mo

A slightly edited photo from Last Shit's Flickrstream.

Moss Poetry

After the previous fern post below, I can't think of a better segue than moss lettering. This enviromental graffiti is the handwork of Anna Garforth who plants poetry around the urban landscape of London. The final artwork below is to spell out Grow beyond what you know with each word planted in a different location.

:: Photos above Via Crosshatchling and BumBumBum. The Photo below via Webponce.

Fork it Over

:: From the Library of Congress.

Sort of a Chalky Little Wine Label

Chalk-lettered wine label for the Nagging Doubt winery in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. This blackboard wonder is from the hand of Brooklyn designer Dana Tanamachi who works at Louise Fili Ltd. by day and moonlights as a chalk lettering artist by night. The only way this could get any better would be to kick back with a glass of wine and enjoy watching her design it. Then see more of Dana's type-lapsed wonders here and here.

Nagging Doubt Viognier from Dana Tanamachi on Vimeo.

Clean Green Machine

This lovely 1932 Corona typewriter has to be one of the all-time greatest. Click on any key for a closer view! It belongs to UK designer Rob Bowker, keeper of the great Typewriter Heaven blog. He just so happens to have a new post today about the type bar and numerous bar type jokes. Coincidentally, it was just brought to my attention that today, May 16th (still barely that date on this side of the globe), is the anniversary of the patent for the type bar which allowed for a visible display of typing. It is hard to imagine, but when typewriters were first introduced on a commercial scale in the 1870s they featured an under-stroke type bar that obscured any writing by the typist. The Underwood Typewriter Company was the first to adopt the new innovation in 1897 and it became an overnight success. So raise a glass to the type bar today at your neighborhood type bar and celebrate visible typing.
      Incidentally, Rob tells me he often refers to the typewriter keyboard as the crumb-tray or the coffee filter as the keyboard seems to perform these functions so well.

Advertisement for the 1928 Corona typewriter.

Hobo Type

Not that Hobo type. This written language for hobos was a system of symbols developed as a code to help them cope with a difficult lifestyle. Hobo signage was often written with chalk or coal and might include directions, information and warnings such as a dangerous dog or the homeowner has a gun. Three diagonal lines signified it was not a safe place, the cross indicated angel food, which was food served to hobos after a sermon, two shovels indicated work available and a cross with a smiley face with one corner meant the doctor was willing to treat hobos for free.
      In 1889 at the National Hobo Convention, the Tourist Union #63 adopted a concrete set of sixteen ethical by-laws to govern the Nation-wide Hobo Body. Oh what a wonderful world it would be if we all lived by this Hobo Code.
1|   Decide your own life, don't let another person run or rule it.
2|   When in town, respect the local laws and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times.
3|   Don't take advantage of someone who is in a vulnerable situation, locals or other hobos.
4|   Always try to find work, even if temporary, and always seek out jobs nobody wants. By doing so you not only help a business along, but ensures employment should you return to that town again.
5|   When no employment is available, make your own work by using your added talents at crafts.
6|   Do not allow yourself to become a stupid drunk and set a bad example for locals' treatment of other hobos.
7|   Respect handouts. Do not wear them out, as another hobo will come along who will need them more than you.
8|   Always respect nature, do not leave garbage in your camp.
9|   When in a community camp, always pitch in to help. 
10|   Try to stay clean whenever possible.
11|   Ride your train respectfully. Cause no problems and act like another crew member.
12|   Do not cause problems in a train yard, another hobo will be coming along who will need passage through the yard.
13|   Do not allow hobos to molest children, and expose all molesters to authorities. They are the worst garbage to infest any society.
14|   Help all runaway children, and try to induce them to return home.
15|   Help all fellow hobos whenever and wherever needed.
16|   If present at a hobo court and you have testimony, give it. Whether for or against the accused, your voice counts!
:: Hobo Code is Via Design Facts

Suitable for Framing

A Fornasetti scarf belonging to Jane Audas who keeps the wonderful blog, Shelf Appeal. Jane believes Piero Fornasetti designed the rebus artwork for Jacqmar in the 1940s or 50s. It's much too nice to wear so she mounted it on unbleached calico and framed it for her bedroom wall. Read Jane's account of the scarf here.

Literature For Your Walls

Printed on satin-finished paper, these books come ready-for-hanging on your wall as posters. Designed by Postertext, most contain the entire text of a book and are illustrated with a memorable scene from the story. New books are added nearly every week, so be sure to check back if you don't see your favorite currently displayed.

From the top: 

Moby Dick

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Great Gatsby

Alphabet Dreams

Why has it taken so long for the interior design community to recognize there might be a market for typographic wallcoverings? Here are some nice off the rack designs, but one could easily print up their own custom designs as well.

:: From Freshome via Teaching Literacy

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.

Visual Language

This past weekend I had the pleasure to attend a small gathering at Seattle's Elliot Bay Bookstore for a book reading by typographer, linguist, poet and author Robert Bringhurst. Some of you may know him as author of one of the most influential books on typography, The Elements of Typographic Style. Often referred to as just Bringhurst, this classic book has gone into six revised editions since it was first printed in 1992. As a teacher, I consider this an essential book for designers of any stripe and recommend it to all of my students to purchase and read cover-to-cover. Bringhurst is a prolific and brilliant writer of prose, linguistics and typography. Even so, this particular book reading had little to do with typography, but centered on language. He read from his recently published, third book in the trilogy on the Masterworks of the Classical Haida Mythtellers, A Story as Sharp as a Knife, about the the first nation Haida culture in British Columbia and the reinterpretations of their storytelling into written language. 

Several years ago I had an opportunity to hear Robert Bringhurst speak specifically about typography at TypeCon in Seattle and was blown away by his eloquent presentation. He equated letters and text with musical scales and even particles of physical matter, just as he touches upon in Elements. This recent reading was all about language and storytelling, and how language is interpreted in different cultures. After the reading I had an opportunity to briefly speak to him and my first question was how he came to write Elements of Typographic Style since his life's work has been about the study of linguistics, literature, physics and philosophy. He replied in so many words that all of these studies revolved specifically around language. Typography is the greatest ingredient of written language and it's presentation has everything to do with communication and design. Bringhurst's books are a perfect example of this, as he has a hand in the design of each of them. Elements was originally published by Canadian publisher, Hartley & Marks in 1992 in a white hardback cover. Later revised editions were reversed and printed in black background covers. Also shown here is The Solid Form of Language, about the relationship of script and language. It is designed by Robert Bringhurst and Andrew Steeves and published by the Gaspereau Press of Nova Scotia in 2004.

Posters of all Type

2011 Poster for a film screening about artist Ginny Ruffner at the 

Henry Art Gallery in Seattle. Designer unknown : (

1967 Polish poster promoting a cultural congress concerned
with books and the press. Designed by Jan Miodozeniec.
::Via: Pink Ponk Flickr

2003 poster for King of Hawaii at The Tractor Tavern.
Designed by Art Chantry.
:: Via: Gig Posters

100 Best Posters Show from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Design by Fons Hickmann.
:: Via: Typographic Posters

2011 poster for first meeting of Latin American Independent Publishers.

Designed by Isidro Ferrer.

2008 poster by Hungarian designer, Aron Jancso.
Sorry, no translation available.

:: Via Flickr

2011 liberation for Libya poster by Dev Gupta.
:: Via: DevGupta Flickr

2008 show poster for The Melvin's.
Design by Heads of State.

2009 CZentrifuga poster by Damien Tran.

2010 poster for the Eastside Bookshop in London.
Design by Mihail Mihaylov.

1990 poster for the 200th anniversary of Ben Franklin's genius.
Design by Paul Rand.

2002 poster for Ed Fella presentation at Nat's.
Design by Ed Fella.
:: Via: Tiny Texture

A small iota of type posters here today, but will gather more to display later. Please feel free to send me links if you know of some particularly nice typographic posters. Always happy to get them!

Reading While Walking

One of the best promotions for reading I have seen. Designed for Get London Reading by KentLyons, London. Do mind the pavement cracks!