Items filed under: Type & Lettering Sightings

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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: