I saw this while on a brain-frying four-hour hike around Atlanta with Paul Shaw to help him scout locations for his upcoming TypeCon Type Tour. Photo taken July 15, 2009.
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Spotted this curious little car in an amazing place called M. Schettl outside of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, back in 2009. It’s a Citicar, an all-electric vehicle made back in the seventies.
Not long after I saw this relic, I happened to be watching the television movie adaptation of Ursula LeGuin’s science fiction novel, The Lathe of Heaven, starring Bruce Davidson. It was made in 1980 and was set in the (then) near future. Of course, they needed some futuristic looking cars, and I guess the Citicar fit the bill. They used several of them for the film. I wouldn’t have known what they were if I hadn’t just seen this one in Oshkosh.
There’s something forlorn about seeing this little car rusting away among the other antiques they had there. The future is never quite what people think it will be.
Check out the logo on the dashboard and over the rear bumber: Amelia—the erstwhile number-one choice when you wanted to say “future” with a font.
Seen on the floor of an elevator in Madison, Wisconsin, on March 21, 2011.
Saw this at Mystic Blue Signs in New Orleans last summer during TypeCon. It was in a big old French book about lettering and engraving. I wish I’d written down some information about it. I think it was from around 1880. Heard from someone that it is from 1859.
The alphabet on this particular page was very unexpected. It looks almost like Avant Garde in some ways. And dig that crazy “g”! Way ahead of its time.