The Flavor

Been awhile since I posted about my little type documentation venture. There’s a couple hundred images up there now. This is one of my all-time favorites, from way up north on Clark Street.

A photographer friend just went to Beijing to shoot a story and came back with a bunch of cool t-shirts. A bunch came from this site. Very cool.

I discovered Tommy Perman through 20×200 and really dig his stuff. Rather than buy another piece from 20×200 to sit unframed on the shelf with the others, I bought a cool postcard pack from Surface Pressure instead. There’s 16 cool illos in the pack, suitable for framing, or sitting unframed as the case may be.

Anyways, the point is, his work is great and it turns out, Surface Pressure is actually his record label. He’s Scottish, and does all the things I say I do—music, design, art—and more.

He’s clearly cooler than me.

In 1957, Max Miedinger designed Neue Haas Grotesk, later renamed to Helvetica. A lot of versions and take-offs have come and gone. But Canada Type has dug up a little-known original of Max’s and recreated it—apparently drawing from old phototype. This comes from the blurb on YouWorkForThem:

Miedinger designed two more typefaces that seem to have been lost to the dust of film type history. One is called Pro Arte (1954), a very condensed Playbill-like slab serif that is similar to many of its genre. The other, made in 1964, is much more interesting. Its original name was Horizontal. Here it is, lest it becomes a Haas-been, presented to you in digital form by Canada Type under the name of its original designer, Miedinger, the Helvetica King.

This digital version introduces a new lighter weight alongside the bold original.

And it’s cheap: only $19.95 for both weights at MyFonts. Nice.

A few choice album covers from the masters of the weird, Hipgnosis. In many ways, they defined album art from the late ’60s through the 80’s. Picked-up here via qbn.com.

It sounds like a Commie rag, and maybe the regular Quarterly was. But this is a “hymnal” with what amount to church songs for hippies.

I found this amidst my dad’s boxed-garage-crap years ago. He was neither a Commie nor a hippie, but he played the guitar and was raised catholic.

Ironically, it was printed in Chicago. Perhaps it actually belongs on Chicago Type, another of my sites. It’s damn near a 1967 type specimen book. The layouts are energetic and inspired—bringing an intesity to the social message often out of sync with the peacenik Kumbaya nature of the songs.

The type styles vary wildly from page to page, and often within each spread. This must have been pretty hard to do in 1967. Presumably it was all phototype, all spec’ed separately and maybe assembled by hand. No small feat considering how stoned they likely were judging from the Beat-like stream of consciousness of the headlines. Regardless, someone put a lotta work into this little one-color, saddle-stitched pamphlet.

I’m very proud to admit that one of my son’s first words was “logo”. And if he hadn’t mastered the Little Wooden Puzzle at a staggeringly early age, you can bet I would run off immediately and buy him one of these. He’s already very familiar with one of the pieces here, though he usually yells “iPod” when he sees it…

Interesting mixed-media paintings by California art director Andy Jenkins.

I’ll be the first one to admit that I have a problem. I can’t control myself around used book stores. Their pull is magnetic, and it clouds my judgement. I can spend hours in one. First I look for old logo books. Then I start wandering aimlessly looking for raw material for my collages, which could be anything from cookbooks to ornithology textbooks. Inevitably, I find myself buying a few books simply because of the covers. Generally, they discuss arcane topics and have extremely abstract graphic cover art. They were almost always penned in the 60s or 70s. I never read them. I prop them up casually but conspicuously on our book shelves or endtables until the next one comes along.

These two are favorites. I like the layout applied to the series. And the way the type color coordinates. I’d love to find a couple more. The art is extremely abstract–its relationship to the subject matter very oblique.

Another science title. Nice clean type with a more dominant image. This graphic is really unique and, though abstract, feels like it somehow relates to the “dynamic” subject matter.

The designer of this one was probably thrilled to get to do something so stylistically 70s that actually fit the subject matter.

More from my collection to come!

This is an extremely cool site. Work from this trained “Paper Engineer” is structurally complex and beautiful. Make sure to watch the videos. Found through Work Group.