Blog Comments from Fonts In Use – Type at work in the real world.

Comment by Scott McCullough on Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps

Sat, 18 Mar 2017 13:49:20 +0000

I concur that correcting all the typographic shortcomings would dilute the power of the label. It's a semiotic mess that somehow works beautifully because of its many flaws. Next challenge: PB Power Blaster Penetrating Oil

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Comment by Luke Dorny on Hold, Sold, & 2nd Grade Butterfat

Thu, 09 Mar 2017 20:03:22 +0000

Delicious.

Comment by Stéphane Darricau on Massimo Vignelli’s A Few Basic Typefaces

Fri, 10 Feb 2017 20:18:16 +0000

Hello Stephen
If I'm not mistaken, Vignelli didn’t actually favour any version of Garamond, but ATF’s Garamond 3 — as used, for instance, in his Field Guides (1977–1994) for the Audubon Society.

Comment by Florian Hardwig on The Story of Our Friend, the Fat Face

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 10:05:17 +0000

Thanks, Arnaud! We will look into this. The images show one-line samples of the typefaces mentioned in this section.

Edit: The images are back up.

Comment by Arnaud on The Story of Our Friend, the Fat Face

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 08:13:41 +0000

Images under "Revivals, Reinterpretations, and Progressions" are not displayed.

Comment by Jumpy Westheimer on Cheers Logo and Opening Titles

Wed, 08 Feb 2017 01:23:45 +0000

Lee alexander: A quick search on “Saturday night in a saloon” discovers a storefront on Amazon called HistoricalFindings who will sell you a printed scan of the original photo (not the colorized version) for $11 plus shipping -- as well as, apparently, many thousands more prints.

Comment by Cal on Gotham City Chronicle

Thu, 02 Feb 2017 18:14:43 +0000

Can anyone explain why the non-feature headlines have the first word capitalized but no other words? It feels off, but maybe I just don't understand the thought process.

Comment by Florian Hardwig on The Typographic Monotony of American Retail

Sun, 11 Dec 2016 22:04:54 +0000

By the Bauhaus?

Comment by Fred on The Typographic Monotony of American Retail

Sun, 11 Dec 2016 17:08:38 +0000

I think one of the motivating factors is research done in the 50's and 60's about type under stress. Helvetica was one adopted and researched by the Bauhaus to be the most readable and understandable under stress, and from far distances. The problem has been in the 'use' and amateur designers who are not sensitive to the use, and will kern it too tight, for the application. The letterforms themselves are highly readable when properly set, sized, spaced and colored. That's not to say there aren't alternatives. There are infinite alternatives. So when you say "Helvetica is boring" or "Helvetica is difficult to read" ... you're really saying "This designer didn't know how to design using typography" or "This was not a trained designer, or the type would be much more effective." The problem is not the font ... it's the person using the font.

Comment by Lee alexander on Cheers Logo and Opening Titles

Thu, 08 Dec 2016 19:35:57 +0000

Does anyone know where i can purchase a copy of these prints? Id love to hang them in my hallway in my new flat.

Many thanks in anticipation.

Comment by Kevin Kelpe on Hillary for America website and logo

Thu, 20 Oct 2016 10:09:59 +0000

Yes! That K in Kaine needs a set of reins! This looks like it's live traced from several low res iterations of some kind of contemporary grotesque. Parts of it remind me of Brandon by Dohren... after being live traced like a million times.

Comment by Gerald on 2013 Tesla Model S Dashboard Display

Wed, 19 Oct 2016 05:42:11 +0000

Can a Tesla Model S dashboard be installed in a Chevy car?

Comment by Blythwood on Hillary for America website and logo

Sun, 02 Oct 2016 20:31:08 +0000

Interestingly, this photo I've seen of a Clinton campaign office in New York has some fun lettering that seems to be a hand-drawn copy of it (and Impact) at bottom left. (Don’t recognise the heading font, either.)

Source: https://twitter.com/pbump/status/782631196589187072

Comment by Bejoy on Moby Dick, the Arion Press edition

Sun, 02 Oct 2016 18:03:39 +0000

I am late in offering this note. The article is well written and nice, particularly for the inclusion of the illustrations. However, there is no mention of the 1981 Deluxe edition of this book from the University of California Press. Printed on heavy cream color paper and cloth bound in a sturdy slipcase, this edition was limited to 750 copies. The text was reproduced photographically from the original by arrangement with the Arion Press. The Deluxe edition dimensions are 13.5 by 9 inches, compared to the original Arion press’s 15 by 10 inches (a 10% reduction in linear dimensions). The slight reduction allows one to take “the book off the lectern for display and puts it into the hands of readers” (James Hart, Director of the Bancroft Library). Barry Moser’s 100 woodcuts are a delight in this edition.

Comment by Blythwood on Haüy’s Essay on the Education of the Blind (1786)

Sat, 01 Oct 2016 06:10:54 +0000

Sorry, that should read "fusing neoclassical Roman capitals with the build of the fat face and adding condensation" - fat faces generally aren't particularly condensed!

Incidentally, as a personal comment, one topic that I have not really seen in discussion of early sans-serif letterforms that are not written is needlepoint samplers, on which it is easiest to fit a monoline letterform onto the grid structure imposed by the substrate cloth. Many of these - this one, say from 1760, and there are surely many more like it - have some kind of limited number of serifs, and indeed this also has in contrast ornamented capitals of the kind that mostly do not appear in printing just yet. But this is not something I can say much about, and I don't know who has written about this.

On that topic too (since it's beautiful and little-known), here's a text written by a future queen of England (then eleven) in 1544. This is a source that sans-serif letterforms in mass-market printing easily could have come from, but didn't.

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