View allAll Photos Tagged letterforms
cut in honor of the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. image from the Tholenaar Collection at the Letterform Archive. more soon.
Very interesting lettering on ceramics in the Wallace Collection.
Taken with Panasonic 20mm f1.7 lens on GX7.
A New Graphic Design layout using strong san-serif letterforms from the 1950's. This was also called the Swiss Movement in the graphic design world, a carry over from the Bauhaus, De Stiil and early swiss graphics. Not set in Helvetica but set in Helvetica's daddy, Akzidenz Grotesk, at least I suspect that this is Berthold's Akzidenz Grotesk.
The term graphic designer was just coming into being at this time. You were called an advertising artist before that.
Laser-cut maze/letterform project for a local BFA student:
cut by engrave your tech/
In Emily Anderson's workshop for Ligature 19, we all went out and created 3D letterforms. One of my letters was "u." Best viewed large.
My husband designed these two logos for Oregon companies around 1960, with letterforms that he created (called display faces in the days before computers). They are opposite in design direction, but when you freelance you work with a wide range of material.
Working with type was a very physical thing in those days. You ordered stats from companies like Photolettering in New York, or repros from local printing companies or you designed your own faces. And you had to know how to figure a typeface to a specific area, body copy and all. I don't think that anyone does copyfitting anymore, just manipulate the software to make the type fit the space.
One of the earliest heavy italic “antiques” (slab serif).
Tholenaar Collection at Letterform Archive
Mortimer Leach (1906–1975) was one of America’s leading lettering artists, and his work can be found in advertising throughout magazines and newspapers of the 1930s–60s. As an ArtCenter instructor, he taught many career letterers, a legacy that continued through the equally influential Doyald Young, and his Lettering for Advertising (1956) and Letter Design in the Graphic Arts (1960) are some of the best instructional books on the subject. At Letterform Archive we have a small grouping of his original inked boards (including tiny white-out corrections). I think they were some of the first pieces I saw when I visited Rob Saunders before there was an Archive. This week, I identified two originals that were reproduced in Lettering for Advertising: “Lockheed Constellation” and “The Bryson Lectures”.
Photoshoot didn't do as well as planned,
& my photoshop skills aren't as good as I thought...
But what can you do, you know.
This is the famous Rocca de Rosaria of Chiclana de la Frontera. According to the notes of Estrella Burgueso it contains many keys to the correct usage of the letterforms specific to the Andalusian dialect. Apart from the Andalusian M, one can also find the rare use of the Andalusian Y and the Andalusian ‘boustrophedon’ U. The latter is a very special case because its origin eventually dates back to the Phoenicians. I will report more on that when I am back from this research tour and start posting the pictures from my camera. Until then, I am afraid that I will only be posting some iPhone pics.
Unfortunately the Rocca de Rosaria cannot be used as a fully reliable source anymore. After being partially demolished during the French-Spanish war in the 19th century, an Abierto Fuenta project to restore the lettering had been organized by the owners of a sign making company, very religious men. Several local sign painters were contacted through a Gallo-Group (a sort of pre-Facebook way of communicating which involved telegraphics tranported through special setting of the sails of windmills). Initially the project got on well, but after a while, lengthy discussions on wether to correct the mirrored A (which is considered not to be Andalusian but Armenian) or not, finally caused a cancellation of the funding of the Abierto Fuenta project by the Catholic Church which then had the restoration finished by a sign painter who turned out to be slightly dyslectic. As we know, many sign painters suffer from dyslexia and usually they still make excellent signs, but in this case it introduced an extra factor that caused an increase of possible and non-reconstructable inaccuracies, especially concerning the orthographically correctness of the use of mirrored characters in the text.
Nevertheless, the Rocca de Rosaria is one of the most invaluable objects documenting the use of Andalusian letterforms and no doubt it will keep the next generations of researchers occupied with numerous projects that will shed new light on this phenomenon.
Cfr. notes¹ over the above image.
Figure 1. Aristosemic® (AS®) uppercase letterform R. AS® α/N G (∝/m) have equal h & are made only of line segments (Sn, 1≤n≤7, n≠6) intersecting @ 45°⩙90°. All GD in px WNOS; ⊞(⌖), center of symmetry; 20/3≤h/t≤20; 20/3≤hα/wα≤2; hN/wN40/23 ∀0≤N≤9, N≠1; hN/wN10/3, N=1. Key of colours: 255·0·0▶, 255·0·255◀, h2000; 0·255·255▲, 0·255·0▼, w = h; 255·153·153, S1; 255·153·255, S2; 153·153·255, S3; 255·153·204, S1∩S2; 204·153·255, S2∩S3; tS1 300; tS2 212 = tS3 = tS1/√2. Figure 2. ASAP:〈[AI](CDZNV)[E]{[(FH)(YX)]K}(JLT)[U][OQ][(MRSW)(BGP)]〉⟨{4S}{2P[4H(6I)]}⟩. 4SnGαC ∀1≤n≤4, 1≤G≤26: 1(2G) AI; 2(12G) CDFHJLNTVXYZ; 3(11G) BEGKMOPRSUW; 4(1G) Q. 2PGαC ∀1≤PG≤2 (2PG): 1E; 2U. 4HGαC ∀1≤HG≤4 (16HG): 1A(2HG) AI; 2F(5HG) FHKXY; 3O(2HG) OQ; 4B(7HG) BGMPRSW. 6IGαC ∀1≤IG≤6 (19IG): 1C(5IG) CDZNV; 2F(2IG) FH; 3X(2IG) XY; 4J(3IG) JLT; 5M(4IG) MRSW; 6B(3IG) BGP. Figure 3. ASNP: 〈1{{{[08]3}(25)}(69)}[47]〉⟨{4S}[3P(2I)]⟩. 4SnGNC ∀2≤n≤5, 1≤G≤10: 2(1G) 1; 3(2G) 47; 4(2G) 03; 5(5G) 25689. 3PGNC ∀1≤PG≤3 (9PG): 02385; 47; 69. 2IGNC ∀1≤IG≤2 (4IG): 25; 69. Figure 4. Original AS® specimen with kerned glyphs. C, clade; c/¬c, congruent/¬c.; SnGC(S), n-segmented GC; P/H (¬c); I (c).
“ ELENA” rendered in aristosemic fonts ✨
NOTES
1. P, Pitch; R, Roll (⊥ to BRGHP); Y, Yaw.
REFERENCES
E.G.F. Regina 2022: Yautjan typeface.
J.D. Allen & al. 2021: Unicode 14.0.
E.G.F. Regina 2021: Aristosemic® Typeface Phylogeny.
A. Nagasawa 2020: ISO/IEC10646:2020.
A. Doxiadis & B. Mazur 2012: Circles disturbed.
B. Gold & R.A. Simons 2008: Proof & other dilemmas, pp. 221-241.
P.J. Nahin 2004: When least is best.
D.R. Hofstadter 1987: Ambigrams.
S. Kim 1981: Inversions, p. 57.
alphabet · metaoptimization · symmetry · homology · homotopy · iso/homeoglyph · iso/holomorphism · CCT · CPT · FG · MEGT · ML
Mortimer Leach (1906–1975) was one of America’s leading lettering artists, and his work can be found in advertising throughout magazines and newspapers of the 1930s–60s. As an ArtCenter instructor, he taught many career letterers, a legacy that continued through the equally influential Doyald Young, and his Lettering for Advertising (1956) and Letter Design in the Graphic Arts (1960) are some of the best instructional books on the subject. At Letterform Archive we have a small grouping of his original inked boards (including tiny white-out corrections). I think they were some of the first pieces I saw when I visited Rob Saunders before there was an Archive. This week, I identified two originals that were reproduced in Lettering for Advertising: “Lockheed Constellation” and “The Bryson Lectures”.
From the Tholenaar Collection at Letterform Archive.
Normal-Grotesk was released around 1943. It was reworked from Haas’ Akzidenz-Grotesk (based on a Wagner & Schmidt design, c.1909). It is not the same as the Berthold Akzidenz-Grotesk, but both designs, along with Französische Grotesk, were models for Neue Haas-Grotesk (later Helvetica). Info from Indra Kupferschmid. See also her history in Helvetica Forever.
Czech book from the 1930s. From the collection of the Letterform Archive, San Francisco (letterformarchive.org).
This outstanding, original 'date stamped' American envelope (May 10th, 1898), not only promotes the diverse badge making business of Whitehead & Hoag but gives a snapshot of late 19th Century graphic design and illustration. The ornamentation of the letterforms, characterised by extensive 'drop shadowing' was a typical embellishment of the period as was the contrasting use of black, to create the illusion of grey. The detailed illustrations of the badge variations clearly advertise the company's product offering and dovetails with the typographic arrangement. In addition, the handwritten scripted address enhances the overall graphic effect.
Based in Newark, New Jersey, Whitehead & Hoag Co were one of the leading pinback/button badge manufacturers in the USA from the late 19th Century to the mid 20th Century. Pioneers in badge design and construction, they became closely associated with political and presidential campaign button badge manufacturing and their variety of badges were covered by a series of patents, the first of which was issued on June 14th, 1892 with its 'Waving Flag' patent. Other patents soon followed:
October 18th, 1892 - 'Badge Bar' patent
March 7th,1893 - 'Badge Bar' patent
June 12th, 1894 - 'Medallion' patent
November 27th, 1894 - 'Design' patent
December 4th, 1894 - 'Design' patent
December 11th, 1894 - 'Design' patent
July 17th, 1894 - 'Button Pin' patent
December 5th, 1895 - 'Hanger' patent
February 25th, 1896 - 'Reversible Medallion' patent
April 14th, 1896 - 'Button Pin' patent
November 7th, 1897 - 'Celluloid Medallion Patent'
Formed in 1892 by Benjamin S Whitehead (1858-1940) and Chester R Hoag (1860-1935) the company became one of the largest badge manufacturers in the world and although they did make hard vitreous enamel badges and medals, it was their celluloid and ribbon badges that dominated their output. Along with the popularity of the afore mentioned political and presidential campaign buttons, Whitehead & Hoag created a vast range of fraternal/celebration badges for various groups - as detailed on the above envelope cover. The phenomenal growth of American fraternal orders at the tail end of the 19th and early 20th Century created a fantastic badge market for Whitehead & Hoag to exploit. The company used a range of artists for button badge designs, medals and novelties including, at various stages, Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish and Harrison Fisher.
Towards the end of the 19th Century, Whitehead & Hoag set up branch offices in major cities overseas and samplers would be sent from Newark to branch office salesmen in order to target prospective organisations and companies (this operation closed down at the onset of WW11).
After dominating the badge market for over 60 years, Whitehead & Hoag sold out to its major rivals Bastian Bros., of Rochester N.Y. This took place in 1959 although the Whitehead & Hoag name was used by Bastian Bros., until the mid 1960s.
Photography, layout and design: Argy58
(This image also exists as a high resolution jpeg and tiff - ideal for a variety of print sizes
e.g. A4, A3, A2 and A1. The current uploaded format is for screen based viewing only: 72pi)