Amtrak Posters

Train advertising has always been predicated on selling an idea more than the service itself. Ride a train and see the world in style, they promise. Worry-free site-seeing is a noble pursuit, but the reality of train travel hasn't always squared with the sales pitch.

When looking for some letterpress inspiration, we ran across these excellent posters for National Train Day. The designs harken back to the heyday of train travel, perpetuating the romanticism of riding the rails. While Amtrak's brand identity has certainly outpaced its service in recent years, these posters still kinda make us wanna give those rails another chance...

50 Years of the Hockey Mask

Fifty years ago this month, goaltender Jacques Plante took a stick to the face. It was pretty much just a day at the office for goaltenders of that era. But not for Jacques. The Montreal Canadiens' goaltender refused to skate again unless he was able to wear a mask. Since at the time there were no hockey mask designers, he came up with the structure himself (at left). Soon after, others followed.

Those early hockey masks look like crude cousins to today's über-polished, air-brushed designs, but along the way there have been some innovative designs and eye-catching paint schemes. Some of the more bad-ass masks incorporate the logomark of the teams, often in an intimidating manner:

Left: Philadelphia Flyers' Wayne Stephenson; right: Quebec Nordiques' Don McLeod


Team-for-team, our own Washington Capitals match up with anyone. Throughout the late '70s and early '80s, there was a unwavering patriotic bent to the Caps' masks, no doubt fueled by bicentennial fever. Old glory has never as good as when it was mantled across Bernie Wolf's cranium. And how about Wayne Stephenson's Peter Criss-esque design? (Could it have been inspired by KISS' 1979 visit to the Cap Centre?) For pure Americana-on-steroids, you can't beat the Caps' golden era:

Clockwise from top left: Wayne Stephenson ('80-'81); Gary Inness ('79-'81); Bernie Wolf ('78-'79); Gary Smith ('77-'78)

Hardy Har

Bad joke to tell over turkey dinner:

Two fonts walk into a bar.
The bartender says, "I'm sorry. We don't serve your type."

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Gobble gobble!

Stock up for '10

If you're thinking of stuffing a few stockings with printed goodies this holiday season, look no further than Yee Haw Industries' letterpressed calendars. There are a couple dozen crazy-awesome designs to chose from. And if you're looking to stuff our stocking with printed goodies this season, we like these ones. We're just sayin' is all.

Post Number 100

We made it to the century mark! Boy, that's a lot of wasted time -- for both you and us. But we managed to learn a bunch, and hopefully you have, too. While we stuff our gourds with celebratory gluten-free cake, click on the links below to enjoy a recap of the highs and lows...

Who knew that poop rainbows were nature's way of saying, "blog about me!" We found a pot of gold at the end of that particular rainbow and determined once and for all the true master of the fanbrush. (One hint: it wasn't a man who looks like Kenny Rogers.) Speaking of man, human evolution provided a jumping off point for our look at patterns in modern poster design. But just so we didn't appear too erudite, there were plenty of visits with NASCAR paint schemes, including a post on the 200 mph history of Valvoline. In other sports news, we paid a visit to the curling sheet to see the latest in curling fashion. That may inspire a great gift idea for the little'un being feted in our favorite baby shower announcement. You can look here to see more announcements and other self-printed projects that we put on the blog over the past 100 posts. Enjoy!

Linotype Makes Me Happy

Anytime I feel overwhelmed by the ceaseless march of technology at work, I take a stroll over to the headquarters of the Washington Post. See, outside their front doors, they have permanently moored a Linotype machine from their old composition room. You can see it huddled in the alcove above.

Envisioning this hulking piece of machinery chugging away in concert with its pipe-smoking operator (in my mind all newspapermen smoke pipes) is a great way to unravel my mind from present-tense worries. The mechanical action of the machine -- setting, casting, redistributing -- seems a distant memory from today's silent, glowing screens.

At work I relish the sparse opportunities to actually do something mechanical with my hands-- anything, really. (Unfortunately, this usually involves something mundane like trying to adjust my chair.) Oh, to actually have that physical connection with what we create. I wonder if I worked as a full-time Linotype operator, all I'd want to do is go home and stare at a glowing screen. Maybe someday I'll find out the answer. Until then, I'll keep making the pilgrimage over to the Post.

See a Linotype in action:

GOOD Magazine's Infographics

I can't remember if it was Johannes Gutenberg or me who said, "There are few visual successes more elusive than a well-designed infographic." Hand anyone a couple paragraphs of copy and a folder of beautiful photography, and most likely they'll gin up a fairly good layout. Hand someone instructions like "display the likelihood of contracting H1N1 by age group for every county bordering the Great Lakes " and you're likely to see a trainwreck.

The folks at GOOD Magazine have a gift for conveying information in a surprisingly creative way. Witness the above graphic showing where the city of New York gets it's water. (It's part of a much larger infographic, complete with a key explaining why just one of them is wearing a pink sweatshirt.) The information could've been displayed in a number of ways, even as a simple table. But GOOD chose to convey not just the data, but also the spirit of the piece. The fact that GOOD regularly does this -- all the while making it appear effortless -- is downright enviable. Heck, even Gutenberg would be jealous.

Many more of GOOD's infographics can be found here.

Pinball Hall of Fame

The cooler weather has us reminiscing about a jaunt we took to Las Vegas over the summer. With the city sizzling under the early afternoon sun, we ducked into a paradise of gaming: the Pinball Hall of Fame. Housed in a non-descript strip mall (is there any other kind in Vegas?) the Hall of Fame is essentially an arcade stocked with pinball machines from the '40s through the present. All are playable and most cost just a quarter. The machines have been restored and kept in tip-top shape by the Las Vegas Pinball Collectors Club.

The Hall of Fame is a playground for those who appreciate mid-century graphics. The playfields and backglasses are rife with colorful illustrations -- and a pretty comprehensive parade of hairstyles from the past 50 years. Unsurprisingly, our favorite was the Bowling Queen machine from 1964, shown below:


The Hall of Fame is certainly a labor of love and the beneficiaries are us folks who prefer to get our kicks from flippers over one-armed bandits. Heck, twenty dollars will last you a few hours here. How many other places in Vegas can boast that?

Die Cut Weiners

Gather 'round the campfire and enjoy this stupendous direct mail piece by Swink. Although the design and color palette are both top notch, the real joy comes in the die cutting. The promo is designed to be deconstructed -- pop out the die cut pieces and construct your very own campsite. Then, share in the collective warmth and let the conversation flow. (I'm guessing that at $7 a pop to produce, Swink would prefer you talk about their mailer.) Cute as can be.

Many more pics via the link above.

100 to Go

In just 100 days, the Winter Olympics will officially open. Just two days later, NASCAR kicks off its season with the Daytona 500. At the intersection of the two will be Kasey Kahne. His Dodge will be mantled by a Team USA paint scheme at both Daytona and the following week in Fontana.

Perhaps Dale Jr. could be sponsored by alpine skiing... 'cause his career is going downhill fast.

Quiz Time: Helvetica vs. Arial

Helvetica and Arial are completely different typefaces, right? Well, you'd be surprised. Take this quiz that challenges you to recognize the difference by using common logos.

It's tougher than you think. We scored 17/20. Post your own score in the comments.

Happy Halloween!

What says "let's carve up some pumpkins" like a giant batch of free Halloween typefaces? Nothing.

Lego-Realistic Photos

Charles C. Ebbit's light-hearted, if acrophobia-inducing, photo of the RCA building under construction has been the subject of umpteen parodies. The above recreation uses nothing but Legos and a keen sense of humor. You likey? Here's 10 more photos recreated with Legos.

Ampersands and Treble Clefs

Awhile back we posted a piece on ampersands, linking to a wide-ranging history of the symbol. In the comments section, anonymous wrote, "Stretch your imaginative eye and you will see the treble clef in the ampersand." Though there's no historic link between the two, anonymous' comment stuck with me.

The comment was in the back of my head as I sat reading Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style. The book serves as part style guide, part encyclopedia, and part inspiration. There are history lessons -- Jonathan Hoefler cut the "fffl" ligature in his Requiem italic typeface for use in the only two words that contain "fffl" together. There are priggish admonishments -- "use titling figures with full caps, and text figures in all other instances." But mostly the book serves as a comprehensive guide to understanding the finer points of typography.

So what does this exceedingly thorough and thoughtful book have to do with our rather unenlightened blog? In a passage about the ampersand, Bringhurst makes the following point...


Seems our anonymous commenter sensed that connection as well. (Though in typical form, Bringhurst was far more derisive in his description.) Good instinct there, anon.

Now, for 1000 bonus points, can you name either of those two words that contain the string fffl? (Hint: they're German-language words.)

I Swept With Your Wife: A How-To

Over the summer we designed and printed the curling posters above. It was odd to think of curling when the mercury was pushing 90, but during the season there's not a lot of time to do projects like this.

The final product was made using a lino cut, wood type, and an array of inks, passed twice through the proof press. Here's how it went down...

First we drew the curler on a piece of paper, backwards:




Then we took white Saral transfer paper and carefully traced the drawing so its outline transfered onto the lino block:



Next, we inflamed our carpal tunnel syndrome by cutting out the parts of the lino block that we did not want to print:



Then we locked the finished block in the press bed, inked it up with a brayer, and printed it on the poster:



After that initial pass, we laid up the wood type in the bed of the press. After inking the type, we laid the paper back down and made a second pass with the cylinder. The various color combinations were created by mixing and matching colors as we went along. All in all, we created 20 posters.



Paper is from the French Paper Company; assorted wood type; handcut lino block; hand inked in 2 passes on the cylinder press. 12.5" x 19".

A Night of House

One of our favorite font houses is holding an exhibition at the Type Directors Club in New York City this Tuesday night. House Industries will be showcasing their work in an exhibit titled "Type as Object". Perhaps better still, they'll selling their distinctive type-related items (including the blocks shown above). Many more of their wares can be found here, including the best nativity set ever. And thanks to Mom and Dad M., you can see it up close and personal at Duckpin HQ.

Like Clockwork

Just a little eye candy to close out the week. Nothing says, "No time for the old in-out, love, I've just come to read the meter" like Fabiano Hikaru's tribute to A Clockwork Orange.

Enjoy the weekend.

Steamroller!!!

Here's a poster project from leftcoast members of AIGA, complete with video footage. They employed the steamroller method of printing a large linoleum cut. (Wonder if we can get one of those into the Duckipin basement?) The best part is how they added the color: by dripping paint from a nearby building. We're telling you, Mark, this is the solution to your woes!

News Dots

Slate recently introduced a fun little infographic feature. The News Dots service aggregates news stories from the previous 3 days to create a multi-level visualization of current events. Here's how they put it:

Like Kevin Bacon's co-stars, topics in the news are all connected by degrees of separation. To examine how every story fits together, News Dots visualizes the most recent topics in the news as a giant social network. Subjects—represented by the circles—are connected to one another if they appear together in at least two stories, and the size of the dot is proportional to the total number of times the subject is mentioned.

What separates this visualization from other treemaps like Newsmap is that News Dots shows interconnectivity. The smaller series of images above show how the array changes from day-to-day. The only constant? Barack Obama remains the Big Dot on Campus nearly every day.

Below is a screen capture of what happens when you mouse over a dot. The connections are highlighted in red and are listed in a pop up box. Typographically the site could use a lot of work, but the idea behind it is solid.

Wedding Shower Card

There's often lotsa super-sized stuff in weddings: the cake, the bouquet, the bride's ego. So why not a huge card to match?

We made this card (roughly 12"x14") for a recent wedding shower. The idea was that a whole office would sign the back, so it had to be large enough to accommodate everyone's well-wishes. Using a variety of wood type, it's a 2-color job sent through the proof press in a single pass. The fall colors match those the couple picked out for the wedding. Some lockup photos appear below.

Bon voyage, love birds!

(Don't fret, this bride's ego is in full check.)