Wordmarks from a private stock of predigital lettering scoured from low resolution archives, personally converted to bezier outlines by Robb for use by today’s graphic designers who appreciate the wonky shapes of yesteryear. These are not fonts, sorry.Tumblr (3.0; @the-project)http://thetheproject.com/<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1s8fr65LD1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1s8fr65LD1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>As a formal exercise, it is interesting to push stress a particular direction. Out of comfort into out-of-whack. Weight emerges in the stacked text, as if washed out from dramatic foot lighting. Skinny feet broadening into wide shoulders. The “G”s break the trend and will be ignored. What’s interesting is the useful way the gentle increase  builds horizontally letter by letter to add emphasis within the stacked and justified text, it takes a very strict and confining method of arranging headlines and offers movement. The stack turns segmented and ethereal rather than industrially still, able to bare heavy loads. Smokey. Wafty. That episodic shift in upward stress always resets at the harshest contrast (baseline to cap height). New line, new event. Extracted from the layout, “The” looks goofy to contemporary eyes. Looming letters now belong to retro-minded fright night flicks or the jumpy cartoons which need type to match animated contortion. Outside of the block, they look extreme. Bradley’s high contrast art makes the lettering less extreme given all the competition and pattern in the background. I’m guessing the magazine is about cooking? It was published by a stove and ranges company which only lasted for a few years. Maybe the blew their budget on Bradley, 1896 was the final year.</p> <p><a href="http://cl.ly/FU76" title="the_1201.zip"><em>Download</em><br/></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative Commons, etc…</a></p> <p>All © and ™ 1896 <a href="http://thetheproject.com/post/7626404571/v1188">William Bradley</a> and Garland Magazine? </p>http://thetheproject.com/post/20268061070http://thetheproject.com/post/20268061070Sat, 31 Mar 2012 23:59:00 -0400letteringmagazinesans1890s<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyps260xT41qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyps260xT41qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>It looks like a lettering exercise. Here is a <a href="http://image.timepassagesnostalgia.com/watermarked/images76/7698speedballb.jpg">Speedball B</a> knibbed pen, you have quite a little bit of space to between the Dell logo and “ONE.” Give us a “The.” You have two minutes. [Dip. Scritch. Scratch. Swoop. Done.] Hasty and instinctual and tight, all of which is fitting. The cramped squirm of the “h” writhes like the pinned man in sad yellow socks, all the more humane for its discomfort next to solid, inevitable crime block gothics. Victimlettering. Swiped from <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/42080330@N03/3919562153/">UK Vintage</a>.</p> <p><a href="http://cl.ly/DoWR" title="the_1200.zip"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative Commons, etc…</a></p> <p>All © and ™ 1949 Dell and Helen McCloy?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/16919907884http://thetheproject.com/post/16919907884Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:26:21 -0500letteringbookscriptmonoline1940s<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvprmheX9Q1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvprmheX9Q1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p><em>An adventure that will blaze… A love that will flame… ‘Till the stars grow cold…</em> is illustrated as a strident horse-and-camel epic ranging from the UK to a plate tectonically confused Euraisafrica. Impetuous adventure. Brush lettering is flared for the swashbuckling men in turbans, some condensed romans dance for western blondes in red heels. Here, multiple layered brush strokes were required to build up weight but leave tell tale hillocks at overlaps, artifacts which betray the hand of the letterer. I decided to exaggerate them and regulate the quirks into features. Certain of the digitization’s traditionally flat(ish) bases’ stroke ends now have arcing shapes emerging from the severed ends. The “h” ascender deserves a logical corner joining two true trajectories. A respectable point, perhaps just a little blunted from the brush’s glob of ink. Instead, the sure shot is interrupted by a spear point jutting northeast. This is no longer a mistake of naturally occurring doubled strokes with performance enhancement but a new shape emerging from within, or overlapping the silhouette? Where the emergent shapes are potentially violent in the flats, bladed, the curved strokes were also emphasized with cushioning bloats in the “T” top swash and “e” round. Sharp and soft. Adventure and love. Conquest and comfort.</p> <p><a href="http://cl.ly/CJvS" title="the_1199.zip"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative Commons, etc…<br/></a></p> <p>All © and ™ 1950 20th Century Fox?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/15100178281http://thetheproject.com/post/15100178281Sat, 31 Dec 2011 17:12:25 -0500movieletteringbrush1950sposter<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luh65sPEkL1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luh65sPEkL1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>“Decorations by W Aylward” is honest. “Decoration” is a term rarely used today given the serious emphasis attributed to DESIGN and the puffed-chest academic shamanism it takes to wield it. Honesty is refreshing. It’s only a poem, with illustrations and fancier titles than normal. <em>Scribner’s Magazine</em> dealt high definition entertainment in 1913, it was America’s first mass market rag to include COLOR illustrations (1887). Leading talent was commissioned to dazzle audiences. Lettered decorations along The Way to Inde pass through heat distortion, fluttering romances, shimmering confusion, and other trespasses. So, which <a href="http://www.hindirinny.com/?p=159">South Asian script</a> is this lettering approximating? Probably all of them, pulled from Aylward’s recollections of people in overheated environments with wavy flags and symbols which looped in and out of themselves breaking Latin logic. The horizontal stroke topping the “W” is a little <a href="http://thetheproject.com/post/7462226078/v1187">Lombardic</a> and excusably close for a seafaring Wisconsonian referencing linear connections in Devanagari or Bengali, but has little relation to the other typographic conventions on his page. The Way to Inde is mapless, adrift, and beset with guesswork. It picked up a backswooping “d” from some colony using early engraved French type. This confusion, or playfulness, is why I love it. Freed and odd. The strange beast has interesting contrasts, strong verticals in stems with rigidly bored (drilled) counters, like they’ve been tunneled into. Antfarm negative space? A lot of the action here is in the small shapes. The minimal counters, small gestures amplified by so much surrounding black, movement implied by inky little feet kicking out exit strokes (“h” up, “e” down), while partnering stems suction tight to the baseline. The lumpiness of the brush and ink curdles where multiple overlapping strokes define a curve. Inked with oatmeal. I stopped while debating how much bump and melt to apply to the “h” ascender serif-blob, questioning whether or not this could be approached as an eastern cousin to Cooper Black, and it seemed like a terrible idea.</p> <p><a title="the_1198.zip" href="http://cl.ly/BjXB"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…</a></p> <p>©1913 and ™ W. J. Aylward and Scribner’s Magazine?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/12643496939http://thetheproject.com/post/12643496939Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:57:17 -0500letteringscriptbrush1910smagazine<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrm3scqIhp1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrm3scqIhp1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>And baby makes 100. Come see the screwball 3D sans mismatch a story about Navajo and Fed agent clashing, racism, horse swindling, patriotism, enlistment, The Great War, and broken promises! This sans has joy buzzers and whoopie cushions in mind, not the weighty conflicts of <em>The Vanishing American</em>’s story. It makes me wonder whether 1920s Hollywood didn’t believe in advertising according to plot, or in targeting audiences. Maybe vivid color and westerns was enough to put butts in seats. Anything to jar the eye and demand attention, including confusing “inappropriate” lettering. I look at the overlapping baselineless angled shapes and think on how many contextual alternates it would take for an OpenType font to recreate this sort of complexity as a tool. The engineering feat, as an act of logic and intelligent coding would be more artful than the visual product. Incredibly smart fonts producing questionably dumb typesetting is not worth it. This sort of goofiness is best lettered, by hand, custom-fit for the job, because the number of occasions bouncy 3D sans is the best option cannot outnumber the hours or dollars dedicated to replicating its effect in software.</p> <p><a title="the_1197.zip" href="http://cl.ly/ABzp"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…</a></p> <p>©1925 and ™ Famous Players-Lasky Corporation?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/10321200710http://thetheproject.com/post/10321200710Sat, 17 Sep 2011 13:19:23 -04001920sTonedcapsletteringpostershadowsans<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrcced352M1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrcced352M1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>After rounds of “the”s lettered with (relatively) elaborate contours and alien features, a simple sans was called for. Simple does not mean vanilla. I consider it a reset, a typographic palette cleanser. Beefy weights with thinner cross bars in the tradition of Gill Kayo have become Comedy Sans to me due to frequent use on PG movie posters. Proportion here is different from Gill, but the non-militant friendliness is similar. That “e” winks. Or, the slight counter and small aperture in the “e” accentuates its strong jaw as weight does not lessen as is customary in some gothics. It’s only missing a cleft. Fittingly, one of Barclay’s sailor subjects said <a href="http://www.history.navy.mil/ac/artist/b/barclay/barclay%201.html">“Really, we were skinny kids with our ribs hanging out. I said to him, ‘I don’t look like that!’ and he answered, ‘Well, if I sketched you like you are, it wouldn’t make much of recruiting poster, now would it?’”</a> While Barclay was an iconic painter, and experimental jet camouflager, his sketches for titles and placement don’t suggest he was responsible for the boisterous lettering used on his posters. Perhaps some unnamed recruitment office commercial artist had a knack for jocular lettering which would buy you a beer on leave.</p> <p><a title="the_1196.zip" href="http://cl.ly/A4Au"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative Commons, etc…</a></p> <p>©1941 and ™ Naval Art Collection and McClelland Barclay</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/10126049932http://thetheproject.com/post/10126049932Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:49:52 -04001940sletteringlowercasepostersans<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr4xsxBDOz1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr4xsxBDOz1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>Odd shapes are smoke screens for bad point placement or badly translated curve proportions. This is hardly faithful, I kept getting distracted by new ideas in letter features. Penman Costello merges Rhinoceros beetles and spiney conch shells, the segmentation of carapace armor and goth kids’ rings with the Latin alphabet. Light in weight but prickly and possibly borrowed from blackletter leftover by Pennsylvania’s German population? There is a polite lie in “reviving” lettering like this then allowing it to live with so few kinks in its edges. It was scratchy, as can be expected from enlarging handwritten body text. Unless the coarseness of an outline is a feature, intended by the penman to be a fight between ink and toothy paper, I see little need to digitize it. What captures the eye and the head here is the conflict between wide swoop swash and tight-wristed disconnected letter construction. Considering the deliberate stencil-like approach, I emphasized the overlap of strokes in curves. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? Can I show how many hand movments are necessary for Costello to build a swash? But, why is the “e” complete? To count the component strokes of one “h” (including that extraneous armor piercing ascender horn ) then glance at the density of the source memorial text is to feel the dedication to repeat that sequence over and achingly over. Respectful dilligent tendonitis.</p> <p><a title="the_1195.zip" href="http://cl.ly/9vax"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…</a></p> <p>©1920-something and ™ <a href="http://www.zanerian.com/PWCostello.htm">Patrick W Costello</a></p>http://thetheproject.com/post/9999790149http://thetheproject.com/post/9999790149Fri, 09 Sep 2011 13:53:42 -04001920sletteringswashstencilscriptPen-basedposter<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqtqphouDl1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqtqphouDl1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>This is the blockbusteriest of films that 1925 had to offer. <em>Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Stupendous Story of Adventure and Romance</em> states the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CQlsopTG88&feature=related">opening title</a>. Or, <em>Mighty Prehistoric Monsters Clash with Modern Lovers!</em> as an alternate Professor Challenger character <a href="http://baker-street.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/lostworld1.jpg">poster</a> proclaims. Stop motion thunder lizard gore! Actors with too much eye liner and harshly justified hand lettered interstitials! Generations’ poor archiving of painted promotional posters leads to wobbled intentions in digital revivals! The source was less than 100 pixels wide, but the crashing heavy wordmark was interesting enough to puzzle out. There is no such thing as “fidelity” in the digitization. Edges warp in the humidity (The Lost World is in South America). Soft arcs along each facet give the impression of inflating a jewel. Whatever the beastly intent of the letterer, “The” now has  the severity of a ring pop or mylar balloon. Hints of a mold’s hardness are denied by materials used in mass production. Character recognition is reliant on very slight counters amidst all the heavy strokes. The “e” may have once been an inline, long faded yellow near invisible. And, that cantilevered swash of unusual proportions? Grecians tend to be extreme, stony monolithic, things but rarely are they “jaunty” enough to defy gravity so boldly. A support system is missing here, buttresses may be hidden using mirrors. I do not believe in the architectural trickery allowing that to stand. </p> <p><a title="the_1194.zip" href="http://cl.ly/9mZY"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…</a></p> <p>©1925 and ™ First National Pictures?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/9679685525http://thetheproject.com/post/9679685525Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:50:31 -0400letteringmovie1920sswashgrecianslabserif<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqjq4p2eiJ1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqjq4p2eiJ1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>Old Church Slavonic writing, as seen in decorative Russian Orthodox manuscripts which <a href="http://www.svclub.ru/?an=kommunalka-zvorykin">obviously influenced</a> illustrator <a href="http://www.russianartandbooks.com/russianart/images/items/Ep00013.jpg">Zvorykin</a>, is innately fiery. Dancing and spiky. Violently pretty and so dizzying to my comfort zone. Flame lettering is obviously appropriate to the story, and so someone decided it ought to live on in translation. I don’t know who adapted Zvorykin’s early Cryillic letterforms to Latin (possibly the artist himself?) but they did an interesting if not “good” job of it. The amount of subtle variation (to connect or leave “R” bowls open?) makes me wonder whether bilingual Russians would look at this mingling, <a href="http://www.theworldofstuff.com/other/cyrillic.html">faux Cyrillic</a>, as insulting or aptly guided? For once it’s not used to mock or lionize Soviet-era strength, order, or severity and instead projects a <a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/popcult/handouts/adverts/goodones/JKurland.html">“different degree of ‘Russianness,’”</a> the intricate and the historical pride absent from most of our contemporary (Western) notions of Russian aesthetics. The mind wanders to fuzzy Cold War political and cultural ramifications considering this book and “In the Russian Style” seemed to boom under <a href="http://www.netplaces.com/jacqueline-kennedy-onassis/literati/a-new-career.htm">Jacqueline Onassis’s tenure as an editor at Viking Press in the late 70s</a>. Perhaps that’s appropriate, Zvorykin did make the book <a href="http://forum.artinvestment.ru/blog.php?b=4872">while exiled in France during the Revolution, a gift to a Western employer</a>.</p> <p><a title="the_1193.zip" href="http://cl.ly/9csV"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p>Creative commons, etc…</p> <p>©1930? then ©1978 and ™ Boris Zvorykin and L. Frikatelli then Viking Press?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/9419692848http://thetheproject.com/post/9419692848Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:34:01 -0400letteringcaps1930sbookpen-based<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lq4gy7tW221qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lq4gy7tW221qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>Changeling lettering. What happens when serifs are kidnapped by the lettering fairy? Overkill becomes feature. Perhaps “THE” ate of the fae food, drank the nectar, got stuck in their garden forever. Germinating, reshaping, growing extra bits, forsaking then forgetting its own legible heritage as it roots-in permanent. How might letters go native in a world of phoenixes and minor deities?  Extraneous additions. Superfluous unknown biology. Indulgent letterers with little imagination might have taken that challenge and swashed out the little word till its actual width tripled with ever more decorative swoops, overpowering its function as definitive article. But, illustrator D. S. Walker twisted letter anatomy as tools to defy the common, within his layout’s spacing constraints. How many crossbars are too many? Why shouldn’t the “T” invade the “H“‘s sovereignty, like creeping vines seeking some other plant’s water source, wild. No gardening sheers in sight. Waists and crossbars lift to the sun. I’m curious if left to their new magical flora state, out of sight, how might “THE” look in another 80 years?</p> <p><a title="the_1192.zip" href="http://cl.ly/9PeL"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…</a></p> <p>©1923 and ™ Hans Christian Andersen, Dugald Stewart Walker; and Doubleday, Page and Co.?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/9297260911http://thetheproject.com/post/9297260911Tue, 23 Aug 2011 13:16:00 -04001920sbookletteringserifcaps<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpfon3im8D1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpfon3im8D1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>Lately, there has been less revision, less challenge in shapes shown. Inker’s tracings of selections held enough artistry to build commentary soapboxes upon. After hearing a Carter lecture, again, a non-existent challenge was accepted to avoid thoughtless preservation leading to “taxidermy,” if only for the length of a post. This revisionist exercise was fun, but will be very short lived. It is doubtful anyone will take offense at adjusting Crack Comics’ lettered legacy, no matter how loved <a href="http://www.twomorrows.com/alterego/articles/12fox.html">Gill Fox</a> may have been. This cover is hardly a cherished artifact nor cultural touch point, even for funny books. Bubbled sans are plentiful. What caught my eye was the contrast in plumpness within and outside the “E.” Its structure seemed upholstered, a stiff frame padded outward and minimal fluff around to the crossbar. I wondered whether the effect could sober up, deflate and approach the crop of recent mutant sans which smartly utilize shallow curves in all characters to upend possible boredom with straight-sided historical sans. Diminish the bounce and level out the interior angles. What if a sausage-link sans like VAG Rounded went to boot camp, trained under a humorless drill sergeant and came out with a broken spirit but lots of resolve?</p> <p><a title="the_1191.zip" href="http://cl.ly/93oq"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…</a></p> <p>©1940 and ™ Gill Fox and Quality Comic Group?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/8514012307http://thetheproject.com/post/8514012307Fri, 05 Aug 2011 10:12:05 -0400lettering1940ssanscapscomicrounded<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lozoxvKkfX1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lozoxvKkfX1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p><em>Suzie Wong</em>’s significance, book to stage to film to ballet adaptations was unknown to me, before my media-aware time. Some claim the story classic. Others may target it for any number of offenses: Estranged Westerner in an Exoticized Eastern Land. Saving the Hooker with a Heart of Gold. Pandering Pidgin English. Yellow Fever. Regardless, it stuck. Maybe “the west [America] was trying to prove they have gotten over racism” according to France Nuyen (Suzie on stage) or Ming Wen’s reductive speculation that “male fantasy for a pretty subservient concubine” is key? The character’s appeal, or attraction to postwar East/West culture clashed lovers schtick endured, revived as nightclubs on three continents, implying a lifestyle beyond story. The aesthetics range, it is curious to see which interpretations of nostalgia were adopted. <a href="http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2008/01/lotus_owner_offers_his_old_suz.html">Amsterdam and New York chose squared geometry of ebony window screens.</a> <a href="http://www.chinatouronline.com/china-travel/beijing/beijing-nightlife/World-of-Suzie-Wong-Club_000722.html"> Beijing revived the film’s 60s gogo jetstream sans logo</a>, full-sail shapes previewing the international swinging world to come, where large scale free form plastic or fiberglass paneling was grafted to functional bodywork, obscuring the boring normal bits of life. Too much speculation over <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Suzie-Leon-Pang/dp/0956613705">Brush Script titled 2010 novel retelling the story for today’s global economy</a> could spiral into questioning whether the art director was typographically misinformed, a sad attempt at calligraphy, or meant it to look appropriately street-level OEM cheap in a fit of brilliance. Or, was it a contemporary typographic “retelling” of the hand lettered 1950s cover shown here? My favorite bit, is that the lettering coupled with the illustrated girl of indeterminate age (ignoring shifty shore leave sailor background and her brazen red nail polish) could very well be Suzie Wong Girl Detective/Reporter/Blogger. Harriet the Spy by way of Veronica Mars. Time and place are anywhere/when choker-collared dresses could be deemed fashionable on a girl with more determination than you. Handwritten script runs all vague directions, kid carefree or adult vice. It is <a href="http://www.fontbureau.com/fonts/ReinerScript/">Reiner Script</a> to the (crooked) bone. Differences in letter construction vary, and perhaps the letterer doused the pen with too much ink, changes in direction left globbier rounds unlike the chiseled look of Reiner.</p> <p><a title="the_1190.zip" href="http://cl.ly/8ok1"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…</a></p> <p>©1957 and ™ Richard Mason and Fontana Books</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/8470418186http://thetheproject.com/post/8470418186Thu, 04 Aug 2011 09:16:26 -0400letteringscriptbrushlowercase1950sbook<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lool6r5tbs1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lool6r5tbs1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>Tie bars, lapel pins, monogrammed cigarillo cases, and other manly finery. Not cars. Script this fine cannot cut it for mass market auto today. Cadillac is the only major manufacturer savvy enough to cling to the swoop and swash of their historic identity or advertising. I type upon a phone looking out the bus window at parked-speed rush hour. Rear ends of many makes and models named in noncommittal sans, no <a href="http://chromeography.com/tagged/script">enameled scripts</a> to be seen. Perhaps it makes technological sense, we’ve safely driven out of the human age where the disappearance of script might mark the last remnants of time when cars could be linked to hand craft in the making as well as (attainable) luxury in the buying? That’s a lot of speculation for one ad series’ lettering, but why not? Our contemporary relation to fine script should be scrapped. In 1939 unemployment was still 15% but businessmen were still familiar with the penmanship of <a href="http://www.zanerian.com/Penman.html">Zaner + Bloser manuals</a> as a matter of visual course. Very thick in touches but mostly very thin while very sloped. The script, despite subtle variations and capitals across competing publishers’ copy books, demanded strict adherence, a universal hand recognizable across the nation’s account books and correspondence. Not quite Arial-familiar, but not too distant either. An interesting notion we’re not used to today beyond crafting or cooking: replicably handmade. Sounds like <em>then</em>. Big industry was still factory lines of workers, people touching metal, before programmed robot arms repeated assembly motions ad infinitum. Cars were made by hand(s), sort of. Machine precision improved engineering, manufacturing, then park assist then smart driving google cars. Somewhere along the way the script stopped making sense, software doesn’t leave signatures this looped nor sloped upon its “handiwork.” Business associations fell, executive business class associations stood. So the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/autohistorian/5571752440/">Lincoln Series K</a> ad from <em>then</em> looks, <em>now,</em> like a gentlemanly bauble worn for style alone. “The” seems a manly broach unclasped. Once tailoring/millinery accessories came to mind, calligraphic license was taken with the exit strokes, honing them to pin points, the sort which don’t hurt until after pricked realization sets in. How many business clerk ghosts dance on the head of fine lettering pins?</p> <p><a title="the_1189.zip" href="http://cl.ly/8czk"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…</a></p> <p>©1939 and ™ Lincoln?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/7914605849http://thetheproject.com/post/7914605849Fri, 22 Jul 2011 00:09:56 -0400letteringconnectingscript1930sad<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lo9s7iUIVb1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lo9s7iUIVb1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>Consider life in the 1890s. <a href="http://www.colorantshistory.org/AultWiborg.html">Ink was big business</a>, but a tradesmanly one. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ault%20wiborg">Ault & Wiborg paid out to top talent</a>. Boston Art Nouveau titan (and fellow pressman) William Bradley or Toulouse-Lautrec shilling ink was like Scorcese directing commercials for Final Cut Pro. Business to business advertising on a gorgeous scale. Design and art history have salvaged these for their beauty, but let’s not forget their original context. Colored chemicals for profit. But, the lettering… <a href="http://www.willbradley.com/work/typ/index.htm#">Bradley consulted with ATF</a>. He had chops, even if they tended to big flouncy <a href="http://www.fontbureau.com/fonts/bradleyinitials/">display chops</a>. Big serifs. Eave serifs. Weaponized canopy serifs, bowing low with gravity to wicked points. Serifs to hold back the rain from above or thresh wheat down below.</p> <p><a title="the_1188.zip" href="http://cl.ly/8QRC"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…</a></p> <p>©1898 and ™ William Bradley and The Ault & Wiborg Company?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/7626404571http://thetheproject.com/post/7626404571Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:01:04 -0400letteringadserifcaps1890s<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lo4szmlbI51qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lo4szmlbI51qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>I never trusted <a href="http://cg.scs.carleton.ca/~luc/lombardic.html">Lombardic</a> lettering, nor uncials. There was genetical-level opposition, a flight instinct similar to gradeschool incomprehension toward doodled abstract swirls, paisley amoebas vining up hippy margins. Such shapes were root different from what I knew and trusted. I drew creatures driving motorcycles wearing sunglasses. Since, there has been flirtation then reconciliation with disquieting gooey letters. I approach them with an entomological distance, rubber gloved, holding tweezers analyzing the spider silk connections closing off counters (which should be open as we’re now accustomed), swaying snail eye stalk terminals. It’s fascinating how, when strung together as a block of text, the letters’ many beady eyes seem to watch you read through their tidal loopy movement, weaving in out and cycling backwards rather than push ever forward. Mixed case contemporary latin shapes, bedrock of our present day reading, evolved to mush through with a propulsive rhythm. Our cost of paper is not the luxury it was when <a href="http://paecht-archiv.univie.ac.at/ki/hzbg/hzbg_hss_webbilder/index_hzbg_signaturenliste_en.html">15th Century manuscripts</a> utilized these shapes for biblical contemplation. Information was slow, capitals and text were decorative to dazzle. Now we don’t have time, we like our efficient letters. So, revivals, <a href="http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/lanston/ltc-goudy-text/lombardic-caps/">Goudy</a> and after, feel festive or just <a href="http://kourelis.blogspot.com/2010/09/1915-lombardic-letters-evans-building.html">open ended historical</a> <a href="http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/glc/1479-caxton-initials/">kitsch</a>. Wyeth, or the uncredited title page letterer, even got the time period wrong considering the 14th Century 100 Years’ War subject matter in <a href="http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2010/11/n.html">Doyle’s novel</a>.</p> <p><a title="the_1187.zip" href="http://cl.ly/8Kpe"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…</a></p> <p>©1922 and ™ A. Conan Doyle, N.C. Wyeth, and David McKay Company?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/7462226078http://thetheproject.com/post/7462226078Sun, 10 Jul 2011 15:04:34 -0400lettering1920slombardicmanuscriptbookdoyle<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnynhxCFZE1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnynhxCFZE1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>Now, some proper art appreciation of repetition and contrast for such a small ditty of sheet music ephemera (note this particular scan is cropped, it’s <em>On</em> not <em>In the BEACH at BALI BALI</em>.) Contrast: artist and letterer Jeff Miska emphasizes the words from script to roman but links the two smartly. Discipline kept things in a sans world, little to no flex in weight. Even while the script’s slope is so fierce and space tightens up, “Look at me!” diagonal emphasis is repeated in the “A”s which dominate the caps. The “E” foot even anchors the overt “A” diagonal with a snug slanted end unlike it’s two other cross strokes. Further contrast: all those circles in the art. But, all those zig zags everywhere else macro layout to micro lettering. Foreground people look -zig- to thoughtbubble people whom look -zag- to titling filled with -zigs- to -zags- in the script. Isolating “the” led into a little analytical bunker, deep dark subterranean tunnel vision. Sounds of worldly logic were ignored. “The” seemed organic despite the uniform weight and parallel logic driving its curveless course. Or, probably, I blew up a low resolution image and saw what I wanted. The lettering here, hand rendered as ever, “lived” in a way more machined diagonal sans/script/italic-y type does not. Not all strokes followed uniform trajectories. Some arced more. Some shear edges bubbled in the heat. I doubt Miska intended any of it, his vision may have been more precise, like <a href="http://www.london2012.com/">2012</a>. Ink and fingers and paper just veered off course of their own volition, resulting in implied straight edges built by the slightest of curves.</p> <p><a title="the_1186.zip" href="http://cl.ly/8FkN"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…</a><em><br/></em></p> <p>©1935 and ™ Al Sherman and Joe Morris Music Co?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/7420430461http://thetheproject.com/post/7420430461Sat, 09 Jul 2011 11:48:00 -04001930sletteringconnectingscriptlowercasesheet music<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lno49s6Szy1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lno49s6Szy1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>It is tempting to see this as a black sheep of the WPA’s <a href="http://test.aladin.wrlc.org/gsdl/collect/ftpp/ftpp.shtml">Federal Theater Project</a>. Criminal psychology and aesthetics aping the era’s titan German film industry (which would also work its way into the EG Robinson and Bogart film version released the same year due to director Anatole Litvak’s transEuropean stage and screen pedigree) don’t particularly fit the bolstering social goals of the program. But, doom and gloom sell best in bad times. But, the visuals. Tense wrists produce quick and sharp curves, fitting as suspicion bets silk screen films were made with knives rather than brushes. There are no bubbling strokes seen in other painterly FTP poster lettering. Ends are snipped clean rather than taper where a brush would flex and strain, thinning as edges join producing a nip/point which betrays direction of the signpainter’s exit stroke. Here, certain southeastern curves go awkward where an arm could no longer bend with grace and safety, when the artist opted for better control over surface bite of a sharp blade tip. Pure conjecture, but the downward arc of “The”’s “E” and “Clitterhouse”’s “C” do not look comfortable. Luckily, when a title is filled with long straight-stroked words like “DR. CLITTERHOUSE<em>,</em>” awkward round details easily exaggerate to shout louder from the crowded set. The secondary information, the Who, Where, and When of the poster, belong to that faux-inscriptional form of lettering which influenced the <a href="http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/itc/eras/">heavy</a> <a href="http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/adobe/itc-avant-garde-gothic/">and</a> <a href="http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/itc/friz-quadrata/">disconnected</a> <a href="http://www.creativepro.com/article/scanning-around-gene-part-1-70s-type">70s</a> <a href="http://blog.fonts.com/tag/ulc/">styles pushed by ITC</a>? If only the FTP kept better records about the artists specially employed to make the posters, or the digital librarians cared enough to cite them. (S)he was responsible for several, all of them striking.</p> <p><a title="the_1185.zip" href="http://cl.ly/87YW"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…</a></p> <p>©1938 and ™ Barré Lydon and Federal Art Project?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/7160167776http://thetheproject.com/post/7160167776Sat, 02 Jul 2011 12:46:02 -0400letteringsanstheater1930sposter<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnfl8ka5Cz1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnfl8ka5Cz1qdzs1ao3_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnfl8ka5Cz1qdzs1ao4_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>Sometimes the printer is not your friend, sometimes history is left with androgynous cowboygirl legionnaires, and sometimes this is inspiring. As <a href="http://thetheproject.com/post/1590765954/v1045">before</a>, one variation is not fit to close my interest in this lettering. The core is fine, a sample of common early century arcing shapes bending to and around one another, a cohesive set which look like they shun the poor swash “y” in <em>Grey</em> as it’s just trying too hard. Next, the misregistered colors overlap to create special FX, possibly fitting: design by heat stroke in the wild west? “The” lettering can withstand this mechanical mistake, and shine for it, because the curves embrace the shift by softly merging with the overprint’s outline (more-within the letter, not the likely intentional highlight rule). The parallel curves are dancey as befits a swashy wordmark. The sans on the other hand becomes vertically striated with many straight characters. Hard lines are not forgiving. So I made two. One plain because the source lettering’s intent was good, and the second toned because the printer’s sloppiness output a “better” accident. And, the poor “e” looks out of place without any ball terminals. This is frilly, for rugged yet fashionable cowboygirl.</p> <p><a title="the_1084.zip" href="http://cl.ly/7xd5"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons etc…</a></p> <p>©1916 (or 1921?) and ™ Zane Grey and Grosset & Dunlap?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/6970999637http://thetheproject.com/post/6970999637Mon, 27 Jun 2011 07:08:02 -0400letteringscriptTonedbook1910s<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmwyn3xWH21qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmwyn3xWH21qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>The little I know of this book: it was based on Gauguin’s life and met with scandal upon publication (burnt in a filming of <em>Fahrenheit 451</em>) for all the irresponsible libertine artiste urges? Society was shunned in the name of capital “A” Art. So too was typographic logic cast aside for the freedom of organic pen and brush strokes in the Bantam edition’s title. Caps do not match their lowercase by traditional standards. Caps do not match themselves. Two out of three (“T” and “M”) are what I generalize as <a href="http://www.terminaldesign.com/Fonts/#/YoLucy/AboutDesign">Nonthreatening</a> <a href="http://littleowlski.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/womans-own-magazine-september-9th-1954/">Postwar</a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/leifpeng/253256873/">Modern</a>, built upon the legacy of Bodoni but drawn with cartoon squish and bounce for <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/leifpeng/77598919/">midcentury headlines</a>. Baselines wavered. Straight strokes swung gently, warped inward a little, like letters stretching after a nap. Sometimes waists, like the “T” here, are cinched a little, sucked in ensuring a gut is kept at bay. Lowercase serifs climb up above the usual ramrod straight clip, a more <a href="http://www.stormtype.com/family-genre.html">human touch with some historic precedent.</a> The lowercase x-height is inconsistent. Stress dips back to oldstyle. Relationships from thick to thin stay sparkly Modern, connections are fragile like candy floss and begin to pull pieces away from the “h” stem which looks unsettling and biological, as if the entry point was barbed? I don’t understand why serifless “h” feet ignore the logic of the single serifed “n.” Perhaps the transparency got damaged before press, features were lost. Perhaps the letterer could not be bothered by my narrow expectations of serif relations’ diversity. Philistine am I.</p> <p><a title="the_1183.zip" href="http://www.cl.ly/7h8X"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…<br/></a></p> <p>©1950 and ™ W. Somerset Maugham and Bantam Books</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/6793971687http://thetheproject.com/post/6793971687Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:51:19 -0400letteringbookserifbook1950s<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmrj93npMg1qdzs1ao1_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmrj93npMg1qdzs1ao2_500.jpg"/><br/> <br/><p>The tendency to admire the naive is easy, but it is tricky thinking to equate: the more amateur the effort, the deeper its authenticity. That is a very punk notion. Type/lettering folk and punks share common aptitude to needlessly quibble over small details and how they signify something’s whole merit. I have never heard this 7” released on Tremor records, I only know local journalists deemed it <em>punk</em>. Any drivel on naivety and goodness is mine, because I admire the lettering in confusion. It is a punk deviation from connecting scripts and logical abstract doodling. Punk is two minute music with easy power chords, it is negligent for the sake of speed and middle fingers. The striving amateur letterer was dedicated to the jaggedy and inefficient craft of coloring in. Not speedy, but simple and focused. The haste of fluid calligraphy is impersonated with blunt outlining tools then shapes are filled by techniques many of us explored when idle with graph paper. As points connect along straight(ish) lines, shapes triangulate and a rudimentary typographic “stress” fizzles into being. Extrema are pulled in and through themselves, lines cross, analog Flash tween morphing is invoked. The sharp corners bulge with marker bleed because punk works on cheap absorbent paper. This is reconstructed calligraphy in slow tangram pieces. The time spent crafting such a brash punk script seems so <em>un</em>punk. And was it amateur? A typographer would question too much about the inconsistent play of positive and negative shapes, so, probably. I’ve no idea anymore, it’s just good.</p> <p><a title="the_1007.zip" href="http://www.cl.ly/7bDB"><em>Download</em></a></p> <p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">Creative commons, etc…</a></p> <p>©1978 and ™ The Twenty Seven and Tremor?</p>http://thetheproject.com/post/6563410786http://thetheproject.com/post/6563410786Wed, 15 Jun 2011 16:24:00 -04001970sdistressedletteringlowercasemusicraggedscript