“the” project

February 2nd 2012

It looks like a lettering exercise. Here is a Speedball B 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 UK Vintage.

Download

Creative Commons, etc…

All © and ™ 1949 Dell and Helen McCloy?

Posted at 9:26am and tagged with: lettering, book, script, monoline, 1940s,.

November 11th 2011

40 notes |#

“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. Scribner’s Magazine 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 South Asian script 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 Lombardic 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.

Download

Creative commons, etc…

Posted at 10:57am and tagged with: lettering, script, brush, 1910s, magazine,.

September 9th 2011

2 notes |#

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.

Download

Creative commons, etc…

Posted at 1:53pm and tagged with: 1920s, lettering, swash, stencil, script, Pen-based, poster,.

August 4th 2011

24 notes |#

Suzie Wong’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. Amsterdam and New York chose squared geometry of ebony window screens. Beijing revived the film’s 60s gogo jetstream sans logo, 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 Brush Script titled 2010 novel retelling the story for today’s global economy 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 Reiner Script 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.

Download

Creative commons, etc…

Posted at 9:16am and tagged with: lettering, script, brush, lowercase, 1950s, book,.

July 22nd 2011

26 notes |#

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 enameled scripts 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 Zaner + Bloser manuals 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 then. 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 Lincoln Series K ad from then looks, now, 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?

Download

Creative commons, etc…

Posted at 12:09am and tagged with: lettering, connecting, script, 1930s, ad,.

July 9th 2011

48 notes |#

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 On not In the BEACH at BALI BALI.) 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 2012. Ink and fingers and paper just veered off course of their own volition, resulting in implied straight edges built by the slightest of curves.

Download

Creative commons, etc…

Posted at 11:48am and tagged with: 1930s, lettering, connecting, script, lowercase, sheet music,.

June 27th 2011

4 notes |#

Sometimes the printer is not your friend, sometimes history is left with androgynous cowboygirl legionnaires, and sometimes this is inspiring. As before, 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 Grey 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.

Download

Creative commons etc…

Posted at 7:08am and tagged with: lettering, script, Toned, book, 1910s,.

June 15th 2011

34 notes |#

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 punk. 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 unpunk. 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.

Download

Creative commons, etc…

Posted at 4:24pm and tagged with: 1970s, distressed, lettering, lowercase, music, ragged, script,.

June 9th 2011

23 notes |#

The 1970s comix scene is troublesome. I understand their desire to push an infantilized medium into adult content and breaking taste barriers* was a quick and blunt tool to do so. It tore down seeming tyranny Disney held upon talking animal story telling. Adult in age, Adult in seedy flashing neon content, Childish in packaging? My attempts to appreciate such comix always fall flat at the point of drugged monsters + women solely wearing thongs and battle axes. My curiosity about the craft and independent publishing holds out against personal content bias. Larry Todd’s drafting is typical of the genre to my unlearned eye, bloated characters gone a little ripe crammed into dense backgrounds. His generation was raised on bouncy 1930s Fleischer cartoons and had a taste for body hair. Intently detailed organic bits, unmachined aesthetics, micro wobbles. Inky, messy, heavy coverage, blotter paper conditions. Horrifically cheap newsprint. A lone fanatic at the drawing table, doubtlessly sleepless. Out of artistry or necessity, the traditional comic pencils to inks to lettering production line was forgone and illustrators did their own titling. I doubt Todd was trained in commercial lettering, but he was obviously a meticulous draftsman who could rip looks from history and dedicate time to unimportant yet delicately adorned details. “The,” hidden in a nook of exposition bubbles (so much bold emphasis) and headlines is a nugget of goodness, a brilliant impersonation of typographic shapes. Why is the “h” connected at the base to the “T?” It is just as likely an improvised fix to a smudge between stems as it is guesswork at fancy letter anatomy, caricatured like the people. Equal weights and straight lines are unnecessary, this is cartooning for the stoned? Yet, it is still made legible with a laborious knockout highlight.

Download

Creative Commons, etc…

* that is lazily stated, for the lack of a better term. But, its unedited inclusion feels truer to their Damn the Man times and publishing, which did not care about such information like: ©1975 and ™ Larry Todd and Last Gasp Eco Funnies?

Posted at 2:50pm and tagged with: lettering, comic, connecting, script, 1970s,.

May 14th 2011

13 notes |#

Considering the anatomical terminology employed to discuss letter structure, “physique” is rare. Typographers talk of masculine letters’ “stature” or discuss heavy weight/ink coverage in cheeky terms like “beef.” The proto fitness guru Anthony Sansone, as photographed by Townsend in The Body Beautiful, sold a physique finer than brute heft and muscle for the sake of manly titillation, which required finer titling? A generation or two before were Vaudevillian strongmen like Eugen Sandow and the circussy curly ad lettering of the time treated them as spectacles. Sansone opted for a curated Adonis build, simultaneously strong yet desirous. The book’s flourished thin script was a unique choice. Was it an editorial call to focus on aesthetic “beauty,” the typical duty of such scripts, to counterbalance the model’s mass? Emphasis in contrast? Swashes in tall, stiffened, letters of slight slope seem flaunted to me, and slow. Languorous. Beauty yes, fitness no. The slight-of-hand mixture of curves makes viewers think in terms of curved grace, bodily contours, and straight riding crops. Digitizing low res “the” involved much guesswork, primarily experimenting with weight flexing in curves. The exact nature of the “h” ink trap’s depth, angle, and how severe (or subtle) the whole area leaned right into that rebound curve is likely worlds away from the original. One abandoned adaptation clipped the curve flat against the baseline, but it was if the flow became stunted, improperly grounded. Unexpectedly, lettering led to a fascinating crash course in the history of bodybuilding and how it masked or artfully blended mail order erotica and created a 30s gay icon/entrepreneur.

Download

Creative Commons, etc…

Posted at 5:58pm and tagged with: lettering, script, connecting, swash, 1930s, magazine,.