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Correctly English in Hundred Days by Min Hou and Lin Youtong (eds.), Shanghai: English Translation Advancement Society, Correctly English Society, 1934… ‘This book is prepared for the Chinese young man who wishes to served for the foreign firms. It divided nealy hundred and ninety pages. It contains full of ordinary speak and write language. This book is clearly, easily, to the Chinese young man or scholar. If it is quite understood, that will be satisfaction.”

(Thanks to Ada Nordkvist for the card featuring this book cover that arrived in the mail today… with a thoughtful followup note re: an interview I had with her last week).

Winnipeg, Manitoba

I’ve spent the better part of the weekend (with invaluable help from Ev and Simon Statkewich—thanks!) transporting a ton or so of letterpress display type, along with a number of proof presses and assorted letterpress paraphernalia (that I’ve just purchased from colleague Susan McWatt FitzGerald) out to my place in the woods. (Sue, real type fiend, had acquired the entire contents of a letterpress showcard/poster shop from a retired printer some years ago, with full intentions of setting up a viable printing operation in her garage… and that’s where the materiel has languished until now. Her pending move to Newfoundland at the end of this month triggered her offer to sell).

Fonts range in size from around 48 point (mostly lead in sizes under one inch) to about 7 inches in wood, with lots of interstitial sizes including some very condensed faces. Of the dozens of dusty type cases and racks (featuring a wide variety of serif, sans serif, and vintage display faces) most need cleaning and sorting—much of the type was literally “out of sorts” in buckets, crates, boxes, and bags… so it appears that I’ll have plenty of winter-evening activity in the months ahead. Truth be said, I love letterpress typography, and I can hardly wait to sort this all out, clean it all up, and start those presses rolling—lots of poster and card ideas already percolating.

Images above: a sampling of the letterpress display type now in my posession; the proof presses range from about a small DIN A5 size to something like 2′ x 3′; not shown—assorted furniture, quoins, brayers, lots of leading, and hundreds of type-high printer’s cuts and etched illustrations (weighing hundreds of pounds). An online search for the patent number exhibited on the larger press brought up this PDF from 1933.

I’ll post better photos of complete alphabets once I have the chance to clean and sort the type. As I’m very keen to find out the specific names of the fonts I’ve just acquired (all without documentation), I’ll send anyone who can help me identify an actual font name and/or fabricator/origin a nice printers block (advert or editorial illustration) by post—I know there are more than a few typography aficionados who visit here from time to time.

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Many folks (myself included) have been remembering Jimi Hendrix over the past days—rock’s all-time greatest electric guitarist passed on 40 years ago at the tender age of 27. I vividly recall the first Hendrix song I ever heard (in 1968, outside a record store in Basel, Switzerland while waiting to change streetcars en route to school)… All Along the Watchtower from the Electric Ladyland album.

Only the young die good.

Washington, United States

The By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 collection consists of 908 boldly colored and graphically diverse original posters produced from 1936 to 1943 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal (WPA = Works Progress Administration). Of the 2,000 WPA posters known to exist, the Library of Congress’s collection of more than 900 is the largest. These striking silkscreen, lithograph, and woodcut posters were designed to publicize health and safety programs; cultural programs including art exhibitions, theatrical, and musical performances; travel and tourism; educational programs; and community activities in seventeen states and the District of Columbia. (The posters were made possible by one of the first U.S. Government programs to support the arts and were added to the Library’s holdings in the 1940s).

View the WPA poster collection here.

Thanks to Phred Martin for the link.

Prague, Czech Republic

By dent of having an interest in vintage graphics and ephemera, I hear from a fair number of folks around the globe who are really into retro stuff from yesteryear… to wit, the persistent Boris Adamicko from Prague, who would really love to sell you some of his (admittedly impressive) label collection. You can contact him directly at badamicko[a]upcmail.cz

Bonne chance, Boris.

Wichita, Kansas

Dominic Flask has created an interesting online collection of graphic design history: Design is History, developed as part of his graduate thesis at Fort Hays State University.

(Does the fact that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting or associating with many of the designers whose work is featured on this site make me historic? No—don’t answer that). Thanks to Martyn Schmoll for the link.

This day and age we’re living in gives cause for apprehension.
With speed and new invention, and things like third dimension.
Yet, we get a trifle weary, with Mister Einstein’s theory,
So we must get down to earth, at times relax, relieve the tension.
No matter what the progress, or what may yet be proved,
The simple facts of life are such they cannot be removed.
You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss,
A sigh is just a sigh…
The fundamental things apply, as time goes by.

—from Herman Hupfeld’s “As Time Goes By,” 1931

(thanks to Bob Roach from the GDC Listserv for the lyrical prompt)

From the troubled land of sans/sens…

I grew up with Helvetica (almost literally—during my elementary school years while living in Reinach [on the outskirts of Basel, Switzerland] I would pass by Münchenstein by tram twice daily; Münchenstein is where the Helvetica typeface was developed in the late 1950s by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei [Haas type foundry]).

So, while I admit to a biased preference for Helvetica over Arial (dubbed by many in our field as a “shameless impostor”) I do find it interesting to observe how much fuss some designer colleagues raise over the similarities and differences of these two leading sans-serif faces.

(I’m not sure of the original source of the image above, but it does provide a useful comparison of some of the similarities and differences in “tone of voice” of these two popular faces).

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Friend Martyn Schmoll has suggested a great little article on
I Love Typography: Arial versus Helvetica.

Humble, Texas

This gasoline advertisement for Humble/Enco petroleum company (later Esso/Exxon [remember the “Put a tiger in your tank”campaign?]) ran in Life magazine in 1962… pretty much the exact opposite image of that which petroleum companies are trying to show today. Here’s the text from the advert:

EACH DAY HUMBLE SUPPLIES ENOUGH ENERGY
TO MELT 7 MILLION TONS OF GLACIER!

This giant glacier has remained unmelted for centuries. Yet, the petroleum energy Humble supplies—if converted into heat—could melt it at the rate of 80 tons each second! To meet the nation’s growing needs for energy, Humble has applied science to nature’s resources to become America’s Leading Energy Company. Working wonders with oil through research, Humble provides energy in many forms—to help heat our homes, power our transportation, and to furnish industry with a great variety of versatile chemicals. Stop at a Humble station for new Enco Extra gasoline, and see why the “Happy Motoring” sign is the World’s First Choice!

Click on the image above for an enlarged view. The hubris of Humble is really quite remarkable (Humble is the town in Texas that Exxon U.S.A. traces its roots to). Thanks to Gregor Brandt (via Ms. Marx).