vintage
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.
Seattle World’s Fair Platter
Souvenir platter from the Century 21 Exhibition / 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, scored on eBay.
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!
Dan Reisinger Brussels Exposition Poster, 1958
Just scored this wonderful Dan Reisinger poster on eBay, from the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. It even came with the original envelope in which it had been mailed to Sarkes Tarzian, Inc. / WTTV in Bloomington, Indiana, from Brussels, Belgium in 1958. According to Wikipedia, Mr. Reisinger won first prize for this poster design for the Palais International de la Science (International Hall of Science). I’ve actually had quite a difficult time finding any other images of this poster anywhere else on the Internet, besides the French version depicted on danreisinger.com. I’m looking forward to learning more about it—but I think the first step is to have it linen-mounted and framed.
Nintendo hanafuda cards
I don’t mention it often, but I’m a gamer, and a lifelong fan of Nintendo. After purchasing the New Super Mario Bros. Wii game (which is fantastic, by the way), I found out that Nintendo has a reward system called Club Nintendo, where users can register their Nintendo consoles and games, and earn “coins” doing so. Among the handful of exclusive prizes available to those of us who have spent several hundred dollars on video games, the most “expensive” reward caught my eye: a set of Nintendo hanafuda cards.
Hanafuda means “flower cards” in Japanese. The cards and their associated games have a colorful history, and it’s definitely worth reading the Wikipedia article to learn more. But the interesting tidbit here is that Nintendo goes way back. They were founded in 1889 as a manufacturer of handmade hanafuda, about one hundred years before the dawn of Mario. So these cards are not merely a novelty, but a link to the past1.
I could tell from the Nintendo website that there was something interesting about these cards; they seemed to have a quality quite different from what you’d expect of today’s promotional products. The thing that really caught my eye was the way that the graphics were printed; the offset fills and strokes seemed anachronistic, especially when paired with characters like Wario. From what I can gather, it seems like Nintendo cleverly substituted their trademark characters to replace the “standard” hanafuda graphics (like cranes, etc.), while maintaining traditional backgrounds. So I registered all the games I have, and happily reached the 800 coin mark. The cards came only a few days later, and I’ve documented the unboxing and some detail shots to show off the cards’ vintage look.
Lovely pattern in the title graphic courtesy of néojaponisme.
- Get the reference? [↩]
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.
Another day, another Ed Rondthaler quote
The New York Times masthead Comparison from Ed Rondthaler's book
Avid readers of this blog will remember one of the first posts I made, over a year ago, about a redesign of the Star Waggons logo that I had completed at the time. There may have been some hubris, on my part, in comparing my work to that of the lettering genius Ed Benguiat, but while continuing to read Life With Letters …as they turned photogenic by Ed Rondthaler, I came across a rather familiar looking comparison between the old and new New York Times masthead. Looks like Mr. Rondthaler had made the very same visual comparison when he put this book together back in 1980 or so. Neat!
Plus, the illustration was accompanied by a very informative little blurb, which explains that the project was taken on while Ed Benguiat was an employee of Photo-Lettering, Inc.:
I have been fortunate to witness several great moments in graphic history, but none more overdue than the day the New York Times finally dropped the period from its masthead.
Newspaper mastheads traditionally placed a period after the name, but by 1900 most papers had given up the practice. Even The Enterprise, my father’s little amateur monthly of 1885, had no period. But The New York Times was not one to rush headlong into such change without due consideration. Meanwhile the period appeared day after day and week after week consuming ink, I estimate, at the rate of $84 a year.
It was not until 1966 that the Times concluded there was little to be gained trom further procrastination, and decided to bring its masthead in line with popular usage. It was felt, that appropriate expertise should be sought for the execution of this change, and that it could be combined with minor alterations needed at the Same time. Photo-Lettering was honored in having Ed Benguiat selected to perform the amputation.
The ailing masthead was brought into our quarters on the appointed day. When the operating table was duly set Ed Benguiat, after honing his trusted scalpel to a fine edge, administered four deft strokes of the blade, swiftly severing the period with a minimum of discomfort.
It was an historic moment. One that will be long remembered in the annals of joumalism. I hope we returned the severed period to the Times as a valuable contribution to its archives.
A confluence of two posts
Life With Letters by Edward Rondthaler
I love when I discover that two places, people, or things that I am interested in separately have something in common. I’m currently making my way through Life With Letters …as they turned photogenic by the late, great Edward Rondthaler, co-founder of Photo-Lettering, Inc. I came across this passage today (on page 60):
… Occasionally we would photo-letter tightly fitted lines of caps for typographers who did not want to subject their metal type to excessive saw work or “notching.” Perhaps the most unexpected request for type came from Mr. George Macy at the Limited Editions Club. He wanted the unique 22-point cut of Caslon 471 photo-lettered in 60-point. It takes a man of his typographic sensitivity to appreciate the niceties of that 22-point cut, but we were a jump ahead of him and had the plate already made up just waiting for such a call…
And so we happen upon the confluence of two subjects I’ve devoted posts to in the past: Photo-Lettering, Inc., and Mr. Macy’s books. I would have never realized that one might have been a client of the other.
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.
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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