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While I was visiting Omaha this past summer (I spoke and did a workshop for AIGA Nebraska), I spotted this curious bit of typographic design:
Looks like the artist was going for a Lubalin-style solution—Avant Garde with Swashes. It’s attractive, but not very easy to read, especially the “g”.
I wonder how long it’s been in use? I can’t decide if this is a design from the seventies or eighties, or if it’s a recent design imitating that period. I’m leaning toward the former, mainly because of the use of Optima in the tag line.
While looking for some obscure typographical thing this morning, this ad in a 1955 ATF (American Type Founders) catalog caught my eye:
I have several boxes like the ones shown in the photo. I acquired them with a bunch of other stuff some years ago when the University of Minnesota Journalism School revamped its graphics lab. Here’s one of them:
The silk-screened label is beautiful:
It’s too bad I don’t have any of the type sample cards they were designed to hold. “Here’s something you will want!” Still true, even in 2012.
Postscript: An Etsy page with photos of what went in these boxes. Thanks to Joel for the link, and thanks to Kathy for sending me a complete set of the cards.
Vintage sign seen in St. Paul on June 8, 2002. The building was demolished a few days later.
Vintage hand-painted sign seen in Evansville, Wisconsin on August 7, 2004. This building was in the process of being restored. It had been covered in imitation brick tar paper. Amazingly, the surface beneath is barely weathered. The building was painted silver with these large coal-black letters about two feet tall on both sides of the building. The style appears to be late nineteenth century, but it could have been later than that, especially considering the condition.
Like it says on the box: “For Niceness In Shoes.” Seen in an antique store on July 7, 2004 in Prescott, Minnesota.