Typography

You may have heard about architecture parlante - literally, talking architecture: The architecture of buildings that, in their plans or elevations, create an image that suggests their functions, like the big doughnut near LAX or the big duck in Long Island. Well, there is also typography parlante: The design of which suggests its reason for being. [...]

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The pencil is still the designer's best friend. This collection of instructive pencil sketches for book covers and jackets reveals just how important precision was the to the designer of 1930 Germany. Through thumbnail sketches ideas are brought to the surface and then refined until the final. Aesthetic and style preferences aside, this lesson in [...]

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Lavish graphic design histories are emerging all over the world. The latest to crop up is Linha do tempo do design gráfico no Brasil, written by Chico Homem de Melo and edited and designed by Elaine Ramos, the art director of Editora Cosacnaify, (with a preface by me). This is an ambitious in depth history [...]

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Between the turn of the century and the late 1920s when the so-called "Object Poster" had reached a peak, the most effective posters were those that could be printed in both enlarged and reduced formats without sacrificing any essential visual information. Lucian Bernhard, father of the Object Poster (sachplakat) in Germany, was associated with the [...]

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These simple silk-screened signs from the late 1930s or early 1940s say a lot about the English language and American mores of the times. In just a few words one can guess what kind of establishment (cafe/bar) it was and even speculate as to the clientele. And questions are asked to: Why are ladies not [...]

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"Clang, clang, clang" went the Lino...type "Ding, ding, ding" went the bell "Zing, zing, zing" slid the copy At the moment I typed it, it fell "Chug, chug, chug" went the motor "Bump, bump, bump" rang the lead "Thump, thump, thump" went the matrices When it molded, I could see the type fed "Buzz, buzz, [...]

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Modern was austere. Modernistic was joyful and riotous. Once the style was introduced to the world in Paris at the Exposition internationale des arts et Decoratifs Industrieles modernes in 1925, this ornamental sensibility quickly became the vogue for all the applied arts throughout the industrialized and commercialized world. Between the world wars, design entrepreneurs understood [...]

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The Priester Match poster designed in 1906 by Lucian Bernhard is a watershed document of modern graphic design. Its composition is so stark and its colors so starling that it captures the viewer's eye in an instant. Before Preister, persuasive simplicity was a rare thing in most advertising: posters, especially tended to be wordy and [...]

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My blog Blue Pencil has become infamous for no-holds-barred critiques of books. This is not a Blue Pencil takedown. Instead, this is a welcome opportunity to praise a book that is exemplary in nearly all respects. The book in question is Characters: Cultural Stories Revealed through Typography by Stephen Banham (Port Melbourne: Thames & Hudson [...]

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