Free versal…

erhaps nothing brightened old manuscripts like a versal, or illuminated large, initial cap. Jessica Hische offers a beautful array of fancy lettrines along with code that will create a mortise and place a drop cap in your blog. Go ahead; illuminate your next post!

Indecorous type…

This font does not include ligatures, and predates the symbol for Euros.

B. “Hap” Kliban (1935–1990) offered Barf Bold in one of his extraordinary cartoon collections in the late ’70s. Kliban created a cartoon genre that consisted of a single panel with a droll third person narration (e.g., “Houdini escaping from New Jersey”).

My favorite letter is x. It has a wonderful symmetry. What’s your favorite letter?

Chop suey fonts…

Typographic stereotype (hey, the chef loved it).

Probably the most recognizable and ubiquitous of “ethnic fonts” are the faux Asians: Ginko, Kanban, Mandarin, Rickshaw, Wonton, et al. Also available are cliché representations of Greek, Arab, Yiddish, African American, Tropical Hispanic, Slavic, Franco-Asian, French, Basque, and Klingon.

Paul Shaw’s piece in Print Magazine about ethnic stereotyping in graphic design got me to thinking about the many stereotypes that typography can convey:
hippies, trekkies, scrapbookers, programmer/geeks, new-agers, believers in unicorns, headbangers, fratboys, needlepointers, taggers, restroom taggers, creative renaissance fairgoers, secret agents, and cowboys.

But since we all use the Roman alphabet, how are we ever going to stereotype Italians?

Don’t be out of sorts…

 

Our wedding invitation: printed by Just My Type, Arcata, California

 

“If I were to be sat down at a computer and told, ‘here, you can do whatever you want,’ I wouldn’t know what to do. There would be too many choices,” says John Kristensen, of Firefly Press in this gorgeous short film. No garish bitmap filter or hackneyed vector technique can replace the artistry and craftsmanship in what Firelfy Press in Sommerville Massachusetts produces every day.

I operated a Linotype in the late ’70s, setting hot lead slugs of type. My coworker, Harry, would set up the Heidelberg windmills and then stand in front of the cases setting type by hand on a composing stick, deftly choosing sorts from the case with his free hand. Harry was deaf, so the noise of the shop (we also had two offset duplicators running much of the time) never bothered him.

When we’d throw in (dump galleys of type onto the granite counter to be replaced into the cases), he had no trouble distinguishing sorts. I was befuddled by the p, d, b, and q’s (they look like quadruplets), but they didn’t seem to slow Harry in the least.

Make mine curly…

Quotation marks: they’re used to enclose direct speech and quotations. In most programs, the keyboard will give you double primes, which are used to mark inches. Graphic design programs default to typographic or “curly” quotes. In Britain they are called inverted commas.

According to the Oxford Companion to the English Language, “Double marks are traditionally associated with American printing practice and single marks with British practice”

In the Renaissance, quotes were marked by italics, but typographers first cut quotation marks in the mid-16th century, and by the early 17th century quotation marks were common.

The French and Italian custom prefers guillemets. Quotes are opened with left-facing double guillemets, and closed with right-facing double guillemets (e.g. «I prefer primes,» said the typewriter repairman).

As with the apostrophe, many English speakers (especially sign painters) are befuddled by the the rules which govern the use of quotation marks.

Just remember, quotes are used for direct attribution, not for emphasis.

What’s your sign, and how much does it weigh?

 

Currency symbols are almost invisible. We see them everywhere, but we rarely give them a thought, so let’s take a look at two of them.

Why is the symbol for the British pound sterling a stylized italic upper case L? It’s an abbreviated form of libra, Latin for pound or “pair of scales.” Libra is also the source of the abbreviation for the measurement lb.

Why is the dollar sign an S with one or two bisecting vertical rules? This all-American glyph is actually an immigrant. It comes to us from the Spanish peso. A stylized Ps, was an abbreviation for pesos in the New World. In English, it was first recorded in the 1770s in manuscripts and is seen in print in the early nineteenth century.

Again, a tip of the Textwrapper’s chapeau to the brilliant Humez brothers.

My rich uncial…

Why do we trundle out the uncials, along with the corned beef, for St. Patrick’s Day? Perhaps it’s the association of uncials with the Book of Kells.

Uncials, also known as majuscules, are a script form which was developed during the early Byzantine era (fourth century) along with the new media of parchment and vellum. They are used decoratively in modern graphic design, and they are employed excessively as St. Patrick’s Day approaches. They lack a lower case, so they are difficult to read as text.

The etymology of uncial goes something like, “from Latin uncialis, from uncia (inch),” but Alexander & Nicholas Humez, in their brilliant book ABC ET CETERA The Life & Times of the Roman Alphabet, offer other etymologies. Uncial also could have been St. Jerome’s reference to either illuminated letters, or to “hooked” letters, depending upon how uncialibus was misspelled by the Saintly Dalmatian.

Either way, I agree with St. Jerome. Use uncials sparingly. Legibility is more important than ornamentation.

At’s what I’m talkin’ about…

The ubiquitous, iconic at symbol has a mysterious historical trail. It was included on typewriters as early as 1885, and the roots of the symbol may go back to 16th century Europe. There was no place for @ in traditional typesetting, and there was no nook for the character in the California Job Case.

I had always associated the @ symbol with retail sales and accountancy. It suddenly entered my world when I started using e-mail in the mid ’90s. It was then that the esoteric work of Ray Tomlinson became as familiar to me as as the common octothorpe.