Dingbats and Diners

Two years ago, Duckpin spent the Fourth of July hopping around Southeast Arizona. One of the highlights of our stay at the Shady Dell RV park in Bisbee was our morning breakfast at Dot's Diner, the tiny greasy spoon pictured above.

Few things are more joyful than finding the perfect diner when you're on a road trip. But what if you didn't have to hit the road, and instead just leave the front door of your workplace? Well, that's how the first diner was born. In 1872, a small wagon packed with food pulled up in front of the offices of the Providence Journal, ready to feed the newspapermen who, by the time they finished their shifts, found the doors of the town's restaurants locked for the night. According to an article in Mental_Floss magazine, a nickel could buy you a ham sandwich or half a cranberry pie. The wagon proved so popular that imitators soon followed, and eventually the typology of the modern diner was born: round stools fronting a running counter. Just like Dot's.

So who was the wagon owner who first fed the ink-stained wretches at the Journal? It was Walter Scott, an enterprising printing pressman. Seems it took one to know one.

Timewarp Design

In an earlier post, we showcased a book that extols modern design created with age-old technology. Now, from our West Coast correspondent, James, comes word of the Alt1977 project. Alex Varanese has done the opposite: he celebrates today's technology through the lens of yesterday's design. His ads, two of which appear above, tout the power of recent technology to the technophiles of the late 1970s. More spectacular images here.

Click on images to biggify

West Baden Springs

We couldn't help but squeeze in some Indiana sightseeing on the way back from Dave Churchman's. Above are photos from the West Baden Springs Hotel just outside of French Lick. The gorgeous dome was the largest in the world at the time it was built. And for awhile there in the '80s and '90s, it looked like it was going to be unbuilt. After a long period of neglect, the hotel was saved from demolition and recently restored to it's former glory. Well worth the 300-mile detour.

The Duckpin Dueler

Our impending trip to Las Vegas always brings up the inevitable question: what would you do if you won a million dollars?

My answer is above.

Toyota's put together a great site where you can design your own racecar for the price of providing them a fake e-mail address. After you pimp it out, you can take it for a 3-D simulated test-drive, complete with burnouts. It's a wonderful way to spend an hour or twelve. Kinda like dreaming about what you'd do if you won a million dollars.

Wood Type Haul

After returning from a very fruitful trip to Dave Churchman's letterpress warehouse in Indianapolis, we're looking forward to putting our latest finds to work. We bought 6 or 7 fonts of wood type to fill out some missing areas of our collection, plus various lead slugs, rules, borders, etc. that would be too expensive to ship by mail. Kind as always, Dave threw in some extras to make the 1000-mile roundtrip journey well worth our while. But honestly, just seeing all the presses and parts in person is worth it; it's an education you won't find elsewhere.

Pictured are some new acquisitions: an advertising cut and 25-line Playbill wood type

Impressive

The new book Impressive explores the confluence of modern design and age-old production techniques (letterpress, hand-binding, block engraving, etc.). The desire for a handcrafted feel is the common thread among these projects. Though the techniques are traditional, the results are not. Impressive indeed.

Government Printing Office, Part 2

So whatever became of all those forms we saw in the previous post? After their printing they were likely sent to this room -- the bindery -- to be stitched and trimmed into a finished product.

The above bindery photo also comes courtesy of Shorpy's Harris+Ewing Collection. Though at the time this photo was taken (c. 1910) DC's neighborhoods were mostly segregated, the workplace needn't be. The GPO served as a growth environment for many African-American printers, including several who lived in our house. Could this have been Duckpin Press' forebear?...

enlarged from top image

Government Printing Office, Part 1

We're fortunate to live so close to what was once the world's largest printing plant, the Government Printing Office. Being only a mile away from the facility, it would be an easy commute if, instead of being occasional practitioners, we toiled full-time in the Black Art. Perhaps it was this easy commute that appealed to previous occupants of our house. Several GPO printers have called our house home, starting just after the turn of the 20th century.

Shorpy's Harris+Ewing collection has some great glass-plate negatives from the GPO's heyday. We favor this particular shot from the composition room. Note the endless pile of forms sitting in galley trays down the center of the photo. That right there is more type than we'll likely set in our entire life. We kinda get the feeling that the previous occupants of our house are looking down and smirking at our humble basement operation.

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Take My Ink — Please!

When reading up on one of my favorite comedians, I came across this little nugget on Henny Youngman via Wikipedia:

He grew up in New York City, and his career as a comedian began after he had worked for a number of years at a print shop, where he penned and published a large number of “comedy cards”—cards containing one-line gags that were sold at the shop. The comedy cards were discovered by up-and-coming professional comedian Milton Berle, who encouraged Youngman and formed a close working friendship with him.

Makes perfect sense that the "King of One-Liners" would have started his career this way. It ended some 60 years later, fueled by his violin and jokes that make your dad laugh and your kids groan:

• I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back.

• My grandmother is over eighty and still doesn't need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.

• My wife dresses to kill. She cooks the same way.

• There was a girl knocking on my hotel room door all night! Finally, I let her out.

• When God sneezed, I didn't know what to say.

• While playing golf today I hit two good balls. I stepped on a rake.

Modernist Poster Sale

Mark your calendars for another inspiring auction of modernist posters. On May 3rd, Swann Galleries will be selling 177 lots of posters dating from the 1890s through the 2000s. Pictured is a collection of our favorites, including a clever and whimsical ad for yo-yos by Raymond Gig. We happen to think it would look fetching in the basement of Duckpin HQ. Hint, hint...

Click on image for larger size.

Dega, Baby!

When the thunder rolls onto NASCAR's longest track this weekend, David Reutimann will be sporting a different, uh, sport on his hood. The Alabama college football champions will be featured on the double zero. Given Dega's history of spectacular crashes -- just ask Carl Edwards about his wild ride last year -- here's hoping the only Crimson Tide we see is Reutimann's paint scheme.

Happy Birthday Brasilia

The capital of Brazil, which has given us a slew of architectural gems by Oscar Niemeyer, turns 50 today. A model of urban planning, Basilia was a playground for designers exploring the modernist aesthetic. Though often derided for it's monotonous monumentality, UNESCO designated Brasilia as a World Heritage Site in recognition of it's vision. Futurists, urban planners, and lepidopterists rejoice!

Images from Wikimedia Commons

Philagrafika 2010

Works from 300 artist comprise Philagrafika, a celebration of contemporary printmaking now making its impression on Philadelphia. But don't go there expecting to see your run-of-the-mill letterpress creations. The festival (which ends April 11) explores and embraces the edges of printmaking, from full-room installations to the smallest woodcuts. So what do you do if you don't have any paper to print on? Behold Print Back, Eric Avery's sandblasted toilet seat, a Philagrafika phavorite.

You Down with OED? Yeah You Know Me

Quick multiple choice trivia question for those who love arcane facts... or for those hardcore palaeotypographists out there:

According to a 1688 quotation in the Oxford English Dictionary, what is the typography-related definition of bake?

A. “When Letters stick together in distributing… This is called the Letter is Baked.”
B. “Moulten lead overpours the cast... It is said the Letter is Baked.”
C. “A blank left in printing through the accidental covering of a portion of the ‘forme’ by the frisket. … This is called the Forme is Baked.”
D. “Melting of damaged or discarded sorts… This is to bake the Hellbox.”

Nick Martens explores this and other fun, archaic printing terms found in the OED over at the Bygone Bureau. Oh, and you can find the answer there, too.

Obselete Professions

Over at NPR, they have a great little featurette on obsolete professions. In words and photos, the former occupations they explore include river driver, copy boy, and lector. Not surprisingly, the bygone jobs that resonate with us most are those of typesetter and pinsetter. You can even hear pingirl Nancy Richmond recall her days at the bowling alley, clearing deadwood and uprighting the pins.

As a kid, Duckpin's Pete and his brother James would frequent the basement duckpin alley at the local YMCA, where the pinsetting was manual. We each took our turns in the pit dodging the flying pins. Even more dangerous than the flying pins were our own friends. They liked to play chicken with us, intentionally hurling balls at us as we were setting up the pins. Let's just say bowling balls and shins don't mix. Not all the marks at that alley were on the score sheet.

Cookiegraphy

How appropriate are these? Helvetica cookie cutters.

Car Emblems

For those looking for some retro type inspiration, here's a great collection of classic car emblems on Flickr. Bonus shots of racing car numerals and some commercial lettering, too.

Olympic Curling Fashion

From Chip, Duckpin Press' East Coast correspondent, comes this news from Vancouver: Norway has shattered the barrier of good taste in their pursuit of curling fashion. Check out the magnificent pants they'll be pimping when men's curling gets under way later this week. Kinda puts to shame the curling sweaters we featured awhile back.

According to a Washington Post article, the flashy pants are an effort by the Norwegian team to raise the profile of curling in their home country. Their coach, however, seems unconvinced:

"Everybody thought black was a bit dull, so we tried for red. This was the closest we could get," [Coach Ole] Ingvaldsen said. "I don't like them. I hope my mother doesn't see them. She should rest in peace [one day] without having seen them. I will probably get used to it."

If it's any consolation, coach, we happen to love them.

DesignBot 3000

Whenever a new version of InDesign or Photoshop is released, it's the first thing I look for: the as-of-yet-invented AutoDesign tool. Just imagine: with one touch, your entire project could be designed. Touch the button again and -- whamo! -- it redesigns your project. Hit it again and get a third iteration. This button would revolutionize the industry.

And it would put me out of work.

For that, I fear the AutoDesign tool. In a heartbeat, it can eliminate a wide swath of skilled artisans, much like the Linotype did to typesetters. I often joke about my job being replaced by DesignBot 3000 -- the cute, electronic, alogarithmic version of me. That joke could be becoming more of a reality now, with the release of the addLib iPhone app. It takes any photo stored on your phone and -- whamo! -- creates a graphic image based on "educated theories". The above images are examples of addLib's work, and frankly, it looks better than a lot of stuff I've designed. So is this just another app... or my future replacement?

Thanks to Chippy for the tip.

The Aughts in Review

Atop the heap of retrospectives for the decade that just ended (or didn't) lies this gem from the Magazine Publishers Association and American Society of Magazine Editors. "Covering the Decade in Magazine Covers" is a 10-year recap spoken in through the language of newsstands.

Obvious in this romp is the reliance on celebrity-image-driven design over a thoughtful inspection of the more complex and thought-provoking issues we face. For instance, we happen to think this image does more to capture the entirety of the social climate of the 2000s than any image of, say, Ms. Hilton or Ms. Spears. Yet nothing like it is to be found in the video. Indeed, this retrospective reminds us that the cult of personality dominates over substance on today's newsstand. If magazines themselves are to live to see the end of this decade, perhaps it's time they themselves become a little more substantive.