Eye Candy, Love Letters, Typography
Welcome to Love Letters! It’s no secret that unique type and lettering make my heart sing. Every time I see a candy package, an apartment building or a business card with some custom lettering, I try to document it somehow (if it’s candy related, I’ll devour the contents in the name of typography – the lettering guarantees it’s tasty). All these pictures and ephemera live in a box in my workshop, but in the interest of sharing, I’m going to start posting them up here in a weekly series.
And oh yes, this is a collaborative project. If you’ve got some fancy found lettering you’d like to see on Love Letters, drop me note with a picture (preferably 500px wide), the place you found it, and a little blurb about just what it is that makes you send in your particular Love Letter.
Las Vegas neon sign graveyard
Okay, I guess I live under a rock, I only found out about the place where Vegas’ old neon signs go to die yesterday. More images can be found here.
Lemons
12 pack of lemons, in a yellow net bag, with this great wrapper stapled to the top. I could just eat up ‘lemons’, it doesn’t even look a little sour!
Eden Lily
A flower and gift shop in Edmonton, with the type treatment deserving of a flower shop. Reminiscent of (or is it actually?) Betsy Dunlap‘s calligraphy.
[ posted at 8:25am, Wednesday, March 24th by Vikki ]
Books, Letterpress, Typography
Did I mention I was lucky enough to buy a letterpress several months ago? It’s true! I’m the proud owner of a Craftsmen Superior Pilot Clone (it sounds like it’s from space, but trust me, it’s not). I’ve named the letterpress ‘Tiny’ (because Tiny is actually huge), and Veekee Workshop will be pleased to print custom invites and stationary and whatever you heart desires very very soon. Sadly, right at the moment there’s a few issues one comes across with a 50-100 year old all-metal machine that just need to be fixed up. While Tiny awaits the attentions of a local machinist, it just sits in the shop taunting me everyday, and I cannot tell you how much I simply can’t wait to start printing. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, I’ve been reading up on tabletop and platen printing. Today I came across a really wonderful book called Personal impressions: The small printing press in nineteenth-century America by Elizabeth M. Harris. Not only it written by the former head of the Printing & Graphic Arts department of the Smithsonian Institution, but it’s gorgeously illustrated. Until I can get my hands on a physical copy, we’re all lucky Google Books has scanned it in. Enjoy!
[ posted at 8:03pm, Monday, February 22nd by Vikki ]
Typography
A sweet reference on how to differentiate Helvetica from its evil twin, Arial. Go watch the movie too, if only to put faces to famous names. I didn’t know Hoefler and Frére-Jones were so young - I imagine most typographers to be old and wizened, and have fortunately been proven wrong over and over.
[ posted at 8:23am, Friday, February 12th by Vikki ]