font
A Link to the Past
NYU Gallatin AlumniLink Mentor Program Brochure
I’ve been on a bit of a “ribbon lettering” kick lately. For this brochure/identity design, I was heavily inspired by a number of different sources, both old and new.
I wanted to conjure the notion of “link,” without using a cliché chain illustration in the process. The idea of roads and paths intersecting felt apropos to the concept of mentorship, and after doing some Wikimedia Commons research on such structures, I came up with a lettering style based on the look and feel of junctions or interchanges.
"Link" lettering, process
I wanted the composition of the piece to be simple and adaptable. For inspiration, I perused my copy of Meggs’ A History of Graphic Design (best textbook ever), and came across a simple-yet-gorgeous modernist poster by Lester Beall designed in 1937 for the Rural Electrification Administration. According to Philip Meggs, the poster was intended to be “understandable by illiterate and semi literate audiences,” and although my derivation was a bit more complex, I figured it would probably get the point across fairly easily to very literate university students.
After the basic concept was designed and approved, my brother Devin Korwin helped out with some last-minute Cassandresque shading, just as he had for the “Listening to Wine” poster.
3D Ribbon Script Lettering
I’m always looking for innovative ways to set text, and in the process of creating this postcard, I thought I’d give 3D lettering a try. I wanted to use a three-dimensional “ribbon” to mimic the movement of the pen or brush in the process of cursive writing. I also wanted to reinforce the feeling of papercraft in this piece, inspired by sophisticated pop-up books, especially given the recurring theme of Gallatin’s Alumni Day activities, “Return to the Great Books.”
While the process was somewhat laborious, it was interesting to play with 3D tools to create lettering in a somewhat unconventional way. It allowed me to direct the stroke through loops, and to tie knots inside of letters. There’s something rather Tron-like about it. Perhaps I’ll try “light cycle” lettering next time, or experiment with the smoke trails left by skywriting airplanes.
3D ribbon lettering, before red color was added
Manzanar Sign Follow-Up
Akio Matsumoto, commercial artist. Photo by Ansel Adams.
After I posted my article about the Manzanar War Relocation Center’s entrance sign, I received this email:
Josh:
I ran across your Dec 24 entry regarding the Manzanar relocation sign. My father, who was interned there, painted the sign. He passed away four years ago but was a graphic artist who did a lot calligraphic work (even before being relocated). Ansel Adams took several pictures of him (see this link).
He had many books containing various fonts. I donated many of them to the Cerritos Library when he passed away. However, I don’t think that the font he used for the Manzanar sign was in them since he wasn’t able to take much with him to the relocation center.
FYI: Another person who worked in the Manzanar sign shop was Jack Hirose (see this link).
Regards,
Mark
So this information, frankly, changes a lot about what I had originally hypothesized. For one, unless Mr. Matsumoto was told to use a specific lettering style, it was probably his choice to use the blackletter face. And if so, it’s more likely that it was an effort towards beautification, rather than propaganda. Many of those who were forced to live at Manzanar had created gardens, murals, and other creative works to improve the look and feel of what was otherwise a barren and austere place. I suppose then that the “Alpine Resort” feel could have been closer to what the artist was going for, not for propaganda, but in a “making-the-best-of-it” sort of way.
Thanks very much to Mark Matsumoto for sharing his father’s story.
What’s in a Font—The Manzanar War Relocation Center Sign
Manzanar War Relocation Center Sign (close up)
Update (January 5, 2010): After posting this article, I received an email from Mark Matsumoto, whose father, Akio Matsumoto, was a commercial artist interned at Manzanar during the War. According to Mark, Akio Matsumoto was the person who painted the sign. Needless to say, this information drastically affects my original theories about the sign’s lettering! I’ve posted a follow-up with more information.
I just returned from a brief vacation to Mammoth Mountain, and on the way back down to Los Angeles we stopped at the Manzanar National Historic Site, former home to the Manzanar “War Relocation Center,” an American concentration camp for thousands of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Despite Manzanar’s picturesque location, the site is a haunting reminder of just how bad things can become when the U.S. ignores its constitution.
Many comparisons have been made between the Americans’ use of concentration camps and those used by the Nazis. With this in mind, I was struck by the lettering used on the Manzanar entrance sign, which bears resemblance to the blackletter styles appropriated by the Nazis during the first years of the second World War. The Nazi party’s use of these blackletter forms was very much a purposeful message (for more information on the topic I would recommend reading Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State by Steven Heller). It seems odd that, at the same time as the United States was at war with Germany, and even detaining German-Americans at camps like Manzanar, the US government would use lettering evocative of the Third Reich. I decided to do some surface-level research to find out more about this lettering decision.
First, I wanted to determine the origin of the lettering style. It appears to be a simplified blackletter, more contemporary than traditional, a modernist version of a Rotunda. After searching through many, many fonts online, I could not find an exact match in digitized form. But perhaps I was using the wrong sign.
Manzanar War Relocation Center Sign
Apparently, the sign that stands at Manzanar today is a fairly faithful replica of the original, which was photographed by Ansel Adams in 1943:
Manzanar sign, photo by Ansel Adams
However, upon closer comparison between the replica and the original, I’ve noticed a few subtle differences:
- The “M” has a bit of a downward slope in the replica which is not present in the original.
- The letter spacing was somewhat tighter on the original, with the exception of “CENTER,” which is more generously spaced in the original than in the replica.
- The shape of the “R” is wider in the original, and appears condensed in the replica.
Seidelburg Heavy (Photo-Lettering)
I then checked my Photo-Lettering Alphabet Thesaurus, Vol. 2, and found a very close match to the original sign’s lettering in “Seidelburg Heavy” (at right). In Life with Letters, Ed Rondthaler of Photo-Lettering, Inc. provides evidence that his company’s letterforms were used extensively by the U.S. government and military during World War II. In fact, their flagship typeface, Murray Hill Gothic, was used in countless propaganda posters and solicitations for war bonds. It wouldn’t be a stretch, then, to think that perhaps the lettering for the Manzanar sign was chosen out of Photo-Lettering’s offerings and subsequently hand carved in wood. Any irregularities, therefore, could have been artistic choices on the part of the signmaker.
So that is my hypothesis. But then why choose a typeface loaded with Germanic connotations at the same time as America was at war with the Germans? And if the U.S. government was trying to lighten the public perception of what Manzanar was, by using euphemisms like “resettlement” and “relocation” rather than “concentration” or “internment,” it would be counterproductive for them to use signage that resembled that of the enemy.
It’s possible, though, that they just didn’t get it. After all, the U.S. didn’t enter German territory until after D-Day, and so perhaps the connection was not yet made when Manzanar was constructed. It’s also strange that they used a blackletter face in all caps; it’s still legible, but it’s not really in line with how the Nazis usually typeset their blackletter headlines (with the exception of acronyms, e.g. “NSDAP”). But there’s also the possibility that the government wanted to draw a non-political connection between Manzanar’s Alpinesque landscape and that of Northern Europe. Perhaps, in a more sinister way, they wanted to dress up Manzanar as a resort destination, rather than a detainment camp. Playful Gothic lettering is frequently found in period restaurant signage, hotels, ski resorts, and pretty much anywhere that an “Old World” feel is sought. So with that in mind, the Manzanar sign could have been subtle propaganda.
The lettering might have also felt en vogue. The lettering face used also shares a lot in common, geometrically, with some of the faces popular during the 1940s. Here are some images from the Smithsonian’s A More Perfect Union online exhibit, from Camp Amache (another detainment camp like Manzanar):
Amache Midsummer Carnival sign
Resettlement Handbook cover, Granada / Amache
Amache Sign
While the sans-serif lettering styles used in these examples are distinctly 1940s in their appearance, their forms and all-caps presentation share similarities with the simplified blackletter of Seidelburg Heavy. Note the unicase “M”s and “N”s, as well as the parallel legs of the “A”s. Maybe the modernized blackletter simply appeared to be of the times.
Lettering carries meaning. It’s not simply a transparent way of communicating words. I think it’s important that we as designers carefully consider the lettering and type styles that we use, especially in historical context, as their educated use can be far more meaningful than their haphazard and casual application.
As always, I’d be happy to hear from anybody who has more insight into this than my hasty research has unearthed. I’ll gladly update this article with corrections or as I learn more12.
- I’ve added a post on the PictureBubbles° Blog with a spherical panorama of Manzanar Cemetery. [↩]
- As mentioned above, a reader has updated me with further information; please see the follow-up post here. [↩]
Holiday present: A.M. Cassandre Photoshop Airbrush Tutorial
A reader wrote to me today to find out more about how the airbrush effects were achieved in the Gallatin “Listening to Wine” poster design. The design had been based on the feel of many wonderful posters by Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, whose dramatic shading effects defined an era of 20th century advertising posters. As a holiday present to all who may stumble upon this post, here’s a quick and dirty tutorial to help you experiment with the stippled airbrush texture effect made possible by Photoshop’s dissolve blending mode:
- Start with a new Photoshop document, with a blank white layer as the background.
- Create a new transparent layer on which you will use your “airbrush.” (It’s a best practice to create layers instead of destructively airbrushing directly on the background.)
- On the new, transparent layer, create a circular selection using the Elliptical Marquee tool.
- On the Layers palette, click the “Add layer mask” button (looks like a shaded rectangle with a white circle inside). This will create a layer mask from your circular selection, allowing you to work on the layer without having to worry about losing the original selection shape.
- Click on the Layer 1 thumbnail to make sure that the layer itself is selected and not the layer mask. It’s sometimes difficult to tell which is currently “active.”
- Select the Brush tool from the tool bar (or press “B” on your keyboard).
- From the Brush palette, select a brush that is soft, round, and large. The exact size will depend on the application, but you can use the [ and ] keys on your keyboard to scale the brush up or down while you’re using it.
- Also from the Brush palette, use the Mode drop-down menu to change the brush’s blending mode to Dissolve.
- Make sure that the Foreground Color is set to something other than white (black is a great color to practice with), and then click and drag your brush tool across the canvas. You should see a speckled effect on the feathered edges of the brush. If you were using the “Normal” blending mode instead of dissolve, the feathered edges would be soft and clean and would lack the texture that “Dissolve” offers.
- You can vary the effect by changing the brush size and also by altering the Brush palette’s Opacity or Flow settings. Experiment in order to find the effect that works best for your application.
- Use additional layers and layer masks just as you would use vellum and stencils in the real world. Layer mask “stencils” help to define the boundaries of the shading effect, but the brush itself defines the look. Another advantage to using layer masks, rather than simple selections, is that the “overspray” is accessible if the mask needs to be moved at any point in the future. It’s like having a stencil that can travel through time!
Josh & Alyssa Wedding “Save the Date” Postcard
My fiancée Alyssa and I are not typical when it comes to our wedding planning. For one thing, we’re getting married at an unconventional venue, the Los Angeles Natural History Museum. Moreover, we both work in design, and there’s no chance in heck that we’d buy any prepackaged save-the-dates or invitations. No sir. So we’ve spent the better part of the year planning out how our wedding will look, from the décor to the communications, and the first component of this gigantic undertaking is the “Save the Date” postcard that you see before you.
Original photographs that became our silhouettes (Photo by Sakura Koontz)
We want our wedding to feel like a party. Not just any party, mind you; more like a 1960s-concert-in-the-park-meets-prehistoric-hipster-safari. Or something like that. We’ve been scouting inspiration from far and wide, and one of the first ideas that hit us was to create a “gig poster” or a vintage-style handbill to inform our potential guests of the basic logistics in advance of the invitation. I’ve designed a whole bunch of save-the-date postcards for Gallatin at NYU (as you can see on the portfolio), but this was obviously a lot more personal. We decided it would be an adventure to silkscreen the invitations ourselves using the “split fountain” technique. It was a popular method of decoration for old concert or boxing posters, but it was usually used in the background to create a bright, colorful gradient on which black type would be set and printed on a letterpress. To stick with the theme, I used a combination of different type and lettering styles, some of which mimic the rough letterpress style of printers like Hatch Show Print in Nashville and Colby Poster Printing Co. here in Los Angeles. Other lettering comes from House’s Photo-Lettering site, such as the “Save the Date” script at the top. We referenced old show prints as well as movie posters (for the “Dino Vision” logo, a pretty blatant rip of the Cinerama logo and the Sinclair dinosaur mark. For the central silhouette illustration, we combined vector traces of two photographs taken by our good friend Sakura Koontz.
The process was remarkably smooth. We’d both done some screenprinting on t-shirts before, but neither of us had any hands-on experience with serigraphy on paper. The stock we chose is French Paper’s Mod-Tone in gray, which comes with a pre-printed pattern. We designed the card to be printed without bleed, 2-up on an 8.5″ by 11″ letter-sized page, allowing us to make a very simple cut and end up with a finished product. (We printed the back side on the cheap using inkjet). Using a Photoshop mockup of the design, we determined that Pantone Orange and Rubine Red would make a nice, yummy “Tequila Sunrise” gradient. Our comp wasn’t far off the mark, but the real-life result was far better than the digital version. Before we knew it, we’d printed up about 150 of them. The right side of the screen had some imperfections in the emulsion which led to some interesting artifacts, while the left side was nearly perfect. I think the variation between different prints is one of the beautiful and lively aspects of hand-printed serigraphs. So even though we sacrifice a bit of legibility, I think we’ve really hit the mark with our attempt at creating a vintage, imperfect look.
Tune in some months from now to see what we do with our invitation!
Metal architectural lettering
One of my favorite aspects of living in Southern California is the local architecture and its accompanying signage. Many of the schools in my area were built in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and lots of them utilize gorgeous, low x-height, geometric titling faces like the ones on which Neutraface is based. The Southern California Regional Occupation Center, circa 1969, has some particularly nice signage adorning its sturdy, imposing Battersea-esque industrial architecture.
Barton Bee Line Legs Box
I just love packaging from the ’60s. This one may have been printed later (it says “Series ‘76″), but I’m pretty sure it had to have been designed in the 1960s and used a few years beyond its intended shelf life.
The Connie Dial Web Presence
A few months ago I posted a teaser image from a project I was not yet ready to announce. The project has actually been complete for a little while now, so I can finally go into detail about it, as I am wont to do.
Connie Dial is author living in Los Angeles county, and spent 27 years with the LAPD. Her experience as a detective and working undercover gave her plenty of inspiration to write. With the release of her first big novel, she wanted to promote her work on the web. We built her site entirely in WordPress so that every aspect of it is easy to edit and manage.
Visually, it was decided early on that we would pursue a sort of “film noir and Art Deco meets Los Angeles Police Department” look. I gathered a collection of images that were on point; these included images from Dragnet, photos of building signage (including the iconic Broadway Hollywood sign), shots of the LA courthouse, and a selection of vintage police ephemera. I liked the wispy, foggy, “diffuse glow” feel; it lends itself well to the lighting and lens choices of old Hollywood films, and also to the smoggy feeling of how Los Angeles used to be (it’s actually not as bad anymore, save for all the brush fires we have here lately). In looking for commonalities amongst the images I gathered, I found a tendency toward the architectural detail of parallel lines and three-dimensional surfaces—the “streamline” look. It occurs also on the Beretta 9mm pistol—another cop tie-in. There’s also the motif of the sunburst, prominently used on the LAPD badge. Typographically, I drew inspiration from said badge, as well as vintage signage and newspaper design.
After presenting a slew of sketches, Connie selected a sketch that was derivative of a combination of an old Brown Derby menu and the Broadway Hollywood sign. I decided it would be well-worth the effort to create the logo as a 3D model of a rooftop sign, and to use the model as an element of a virtual landscape evocative of the zeitgeist I endeavored to recreate. In the process, I may have become a bit carried away, as I created a pretty realistic neon light system connected to the extruded letterforms. I wanted it to look as convincing as possible, and so I crafted the tubes in such a way that they could actually be manufactured—at least according to my extremely naïve knowledge of neon light design. It’s hard to tell from the resolution on the website, but when rendered up close with a glass material on the tubes, it looks pretty neat. This is why I blog about our projects—some of this stuff would never see the light of day otherwise.
Interesting note: in researching The Broadway Hollywood and its signage, I found that they had recently created a pretty nice looking website, including a slightly revamped version of their building’s roof logo. Even better: further research uncovered a new, custom typeface that was developed specifically for the building’s new branding. I love when businesses appreciate what they have, rather than trying to erase their history altogether. This is a terrific example of how things should be done—drawing direct inspiration from the building’s history and iconic visual motifs. Kudos.
Visit Connie Dial’s site at www.conniedial.com, and see this entry on the three steps ahead portfolio.
Cosmographs update
After my recent post on harmonographs, I ponied up for a copy of the Photo-Lettering Alphabet Thesaurus, Volume 2. And now that I can read the book in “full resolution,” I learned a bit more about these mysterious space drawings. The following is transcribed directly from the book:
The figures on the following pages are a unique graphic arts innovation. Photo-Lettering has picked the name “COSMOGRAPHS” to describe these intriguing, orbiting motifs. They represent a significant, modern art-form, for here is scientifically-produced art that unerringly reflects the pitch and flux of this electronic era…free forms unencumbered by traditional patterns…designs with internal momentum capable of exercising a subliminal influence. These are not superficial ornaments; they possess a visual harmony with an enchantment that sets a dominant mood or tone.
Cosmographs are the product of an invention by Edward Lias, physicist in sound. They are visual records of patterns produced by interfering sound waves. Each figure represents a harmonious musical chord or triad. The adjustment of tonalities to different ratios produces the varying formations. The potential of effects is limitless. Here science and art literally join hands in the unity and harmony of basic universal motions.
This introductory showing of cosmographs will no doubt suggest a variety of interesting and practical uses. The designs are available from Photo-Lettering Inc. in SpectraKrome color prints, or black and white glossies from reproduction…as shown or flopped over… positive or negative. Size should be measured on the longest dimension. Prices are adjusted to the intended use.
And later:
Cosmographs are useful for setting moods, attracting attention, decorating backgrounds, and adding distinction to printed matter. Some specific applications include record albums, book jackets, trademarks, letterheads, package designs, wallpaper, murals, displays, TV spots, etc. Also special uses in the areas of electronics, music, art, architecture, fashion, industry, etc.
I think the persuasive 1960s copywriting is almost as good as the designs themselves!
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- Ed Rondthaler's Life with letters …as they turned photogenic
- House Industries: The Book
- Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State by Steven Heller
- Meggs' History of Graphic Design
- The Alphabet Thesaurus, Vol. 2
- The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst
- The Graphic Artists Guild Handbook