Wednesday February 25, 2009
Filed under:
Links
Old Type & Lettering
Township Type
On his blog, Shane Durant is sharing his collection of photos of South African township type and signage.
Sunday February 8, 2009
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Son of Typecasting
Old Type & Lettering
Not a Font
I spend a fair amount of time (too much, probably) helping to identify fonts at Typophile.com’s Type ID Board. One thing that comes up over and over is when someone offers a photo or sample of a sign or advertisement from before the 1960s or 1970s, and they want to know what font it is. Except it’s not a font, it’s lettering or sign painting or some other sort of custom-made letters.
Handmade sign in San Francisco, photographed April 2, 2008.
It’s not surpising that most people (including younger designers) assume that any letters they see out in the world were made using some sort of font. In the modern world, they are usually right. Computers have made it possible to set type at any scale, from the tiniest footnote on the back of a credit card to letters several stories tall on the side of a building. This was not always so.
Vintage painted sign on the side of a building during restoration, Beloit, Wisconsin, August, 8, 2004.
Type did not used to be so flexible. It existed as raised images on small bits of metal (or sometimes wood). It came only in certain sizes. The number of styles available was small—a few thousand at the most, and most typesetting houses offered only a dozen or two of the most popular typefaces. You couldn’t reverse it, change its size, print it over a photograph, make it multi-colored, change its porportions, distort it, make it follow a curve or a wavy line, or even set it at an angle.
Machine-set metal type for a newspaper page.
However, there was a simple solution: The lettering artist.
Ad for sign painting how-to book, 1957.
Because of the inflexibility of type, sign painters and lettering artists flourished. Lettering could go where type could not: Large signs and posters, over photographs and illustrations in magazines and advertisements, on windows and billboards, on the sides of automobiles and appliances, on clocks and watches, on packages and movie titles. Lettering was ubiquitous because it was practical. It was easier, cheaper and more flexibile than trying to do the same thing with type.
Nameplate on an automobile.
As phototypesetting began to replace metal type in the 1950s, type started getting more flexible. It was no longer limited to fixed sizes. With cheap photo-based headline setting machines, the number of styles available exploded in the 1960s, and demand for lettering began to decline. By the mid-1970s, type had become so flexible, the role of lettering was greatly reduced. Digital type and large-output devices in the 1980s all but killed it.
Today, lettering is very much a specialty area, used mainly when a unique design solution is desired, or when the few remaining limitations of type are still encountered.
But, the next time you see a “font” in an old movie or on the cover of an old magazine, remember: It’s probably not a font.
Hand-lettered title from Paths of Glory, 1957.
Postscript: The topic of this item was suggested by San Francisco sign painter Bill Stender, who has created hand-lettered signs and other props for period movies. Bill pointed out that, in my discussion of the use of Helvetica in the movie Tucker, not only would Helvetica not have been available in 1949, type would not have been used for such a large sign. It would have been designed and built by hand.
Friday November 21, 2008
Filed under:
Old Type & Lettering
The End
A big collection of “End” titles from old movies. Most of these were hand-lettered. Wow!
(via Daring Fireball and DaughterNumberThree.)
Friday October 31, 2008
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Old Type & Lettering
Brede Building
It’s hard to believe this still exists. It’s a classic art deco industrial building, complete with art deco neon sign. And it’s not falling down, or in danger of being razed. It’s as if 70 years of architecture and design have overlooked this little spot on Broadway Street NE in Minneapolis. They seem to know what a rare gem they’ve got, and I hope they never change it.
Thursday October 2, 2008
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Old Type & Lettering
Parkside Candies
While I was off doing type things at TypeCon in Buffalo this last July, my partner was off seeing the city. She got a picture of this breathtakingly beautiful old sign. Wow.
Friday September 12, 2008
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Links
Old Type & Lettering
Little Nemo Title Panel Lettering
I’m a long time fan of Winsor McCay, including his hand-lettered titles. Blogger “Morpheus” has posted a big collection of title panels from McCay’s Little Nemo comics on his “Meeting McCay” blog. Amazing stuff. (Via Boing Boing
Thursday July 10, 2008
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Old Type & Lettering
T.E. Stone Ltd.
UK reader Aled Williams sent me this photo of a beautiful hand-painted sign on a hardware store in Bristol. Just lovely.
Update (7/12/08): More photos from the same neighborhood by Jon Tan on Flickr.
Monday June 30, 2008
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Old Type & Lettering
The Golden Age of Chrome
A couple of weekends ago, I attended the “Back to the Fifties” car show in St. Paul. This was the first time for me, despite the fact that we live within walking distance of the Minnesota State Fair Grounds, where the show takes place every year. Since the cars are always cruising around our neighborhood when the event is held, we never felt a pressing need to pay the admission fee. But this year, I decided to get a closer look.
I was glad I brought my camera. I realized what a great opportunity it was to snap photos of car nameplates—the stylized chrome lettering that adorns automobiles. The Fifties was an especially inventive period for “brightwork,” as it is called. For practical reasons, script styles were most often used—it meant that the nameplate could be molded in a single piece of metal. It was a treasure trove.
Here are some gems that I found:
July 9 Update: I just posted these photos (and a few more) on Flickr where you can see them a bit larger.
Tuesday May 27, 2008
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Old Type & Lettering
Ingento
I dragged my old paper cutter up from the basement to use for something I was working on, and the “Ingento” label fell off it onto the floor. I had forgotten what a beautiful logo this is. Just lovely.
Monday March 24, 2008
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Old Type & Lettering
Greetings from Mike Meyer
Mike Meyer is a sign painter based in Mazeppa, Minnesota. I first knew of Mike’s work from the beautiful hand-painted signs he did for a restaurant in St. Paul called Andy’s Garage. (Unfortunately, the original location where I saw them in St. Paul is closed now, but his signs can still be seen at the Minneapolis location in the Midtown Commons.) Last year, Mike discovered my site and we began corresponding by email a bit. Recently, he sent me some photos of cool signs he took on a trip through the south. With his permission, here are a few of them:
Tuesday March 11, 2008
Filed under:
Old Type & Lettering
Amazing Old Album Covers
Ever wondered why albums are called “albums”? At one time, a record album was literally an album that contained records.
A few years ago, I ran across a handful of them in an antique store. They were all from around 1949 or so and contained 45 r.p.m. discs. A lot of the records were missing, but I had to buy them because they had the most amazing cover designs. I wonder who designed them?
The first two are Fred Waring albums on the Decca label and the third is a collection of opera duets on RCA Victor. They remind me of the new wave album covers of the early Eighties used by groups like The Art of Noise. Or maybe it’s the other way around. I love how “45” is put in quotes on the RCA album—as if it’s not really 45 r.p.m.
This Columbia Records Benny Goodman Sextet album seems to have some Joan Miró influence. Spaced out Bodoni Italic, dotted lines, bee-bop cartouches—what’s not to like? Notice how they advertise that the records are “unbreakable.” This must have been a big marketing issue at the time.
The last two are Nat “King” Cole albums released by Capitol Records. They both feature bold, lively abstract designs in which Cole is represented by a crown. In the first one, it even looks kind of like him. The piano is reduced to a big red shape (the lid) and a few small white ones (the keys) with emanating sound waves tying it all together. The second one uses sound waves again, but shown more like a stream of air flowing around the musicians. Whatever. It’s cool.
Wednesday February 13, 2008
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Old Type & Lettering
Adam Top Hats
Logo on a hat box, seen in an antique store in Oneonta, New York, July 7, 2007. Those are some snappy caps.
Tuesday October 9, 2007
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Old Type & Lettering
A Little Lotto
Vintage Lotto game boxes. Photographed (top to bottom) at Kellogg, Minnesota, August 21, 2004; Hopkins, Minnesota, December 18, 2004; Wisconsin Dells, July 31, 2004; and Kellogg, Minnesota, August 21, 2004.
Thursday September 20, 2007
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Old Type & Lettering
What the Sims Eat for Breakfast
Seen at the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 28, 2007.
Saturday July 28, 2007
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Old Type & Lettering
Neon Graveyard
Outstanding set of photos by Carl Carl from the Neon Graveyard in Las Vegas. (Via Boing Boing.)
Tuesday June 19, 2007
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Old Type & Lettering
The Modern
The “Modern” has seen many incarnations over the years. Originally it was a laundromat—The Modern Laundry. Back in the ‘80s it was The Modern Times Café. Now it’s a Mexican restaurant called La Isla Del Kora. Through it all, those giant art deco letters have always remained. It’s a monument to a “now” that has long passed. That it has survived this long makes me happy. (Photographed on April 29, 2007, in Minneapolis.)
Thursday June 7, 2007
Filed under:
Old Type & Lettering
Coquette Sign
Not a font sighting. Seen in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on August 8, 2006.
Wednesday March 21, 2007
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Old Type & Lettering
The Story of Mrs. Murphy (1949)
I don’t know or care what this book is about, but the lettering on the cover is incredible. Seen in an antique store in West Salem, Wisconsin, on August 19, 2006.
Thursday August 17, 2006
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Old Type & Lettering
Twenty Three
Dimensional letters seen on a building in Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 8, 2006.
Sunday August 6, 2006
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Old Type & Lettering
TypeCon 2006, Boston: Part 0
Just arrived in Boston yesterday for TypeCon 2006. While walking along the famous Freedom Trail, I snapped this photo of a great vintage sign. Scooby seems to like it, too. (By the way, if you walk on the Freedom Trail the wrong direction, should it be called the Tyranny Trail?)
Monday July 24, 2006
Filed under:
Old Type & Lettering
Chess Board
Lettering on the back of an antique cardboard chess board. Discovered in a yard sale, St. Paul, Minnesota, summer 2005.