I'll see your Ricoh C901s…

The Hegemon is boasting about its state of the art hugely expensive printer (think a run-down house in Stoke-on-Trent and you're in the ballpark), but I saw a good one at the weekend (click to enlarge):

and it does things like this:

If I were a free man, and talented, I'd run a Morris/Gill/Johnston style printing house and type foundry, only without Morris's aristo customers and Gill's penchant for incest and bestiality (the commercial Eric Gill website uses the word 'colourful', while the EG Society only mentions his religiosity). I don't know much about Johnston except that he's the most famous Uruguayan ever, so perhaps he's a good role model.

Also at Gregynog were these period features:

and this rather unpleasant brand name on a concealed door mechanism.

Wonder if they're still going… I can't find anything by or about them online or at the Intellectual Property Office, but there is a company in South Africa (of all places) called Slavepak: mmm, cheap. Union Street is all very arty-farty these days but was a manufacturing and prostitution area.

Hounding Baskerville

I've read a couple of books on typography recently, and been accused of geekishness. I don't particularly care. If you want a chatty, informative and fascinating account of the strange world of typography, I recommend Simon Garfield's new Just My Type.

Amongst the things I learned was the story of John Baskerville. More than the designer of Baskerville type (a very elegant font indeed), this Brummie was a radical atheist and freethinker, friend of Benjamin Franklin and all-round Enlightenment hero.

He was buried - vertically - in his own back garden to make an atheistical point, but when the house changed hands and a canal sliced off some of the land, his body was first discarded, then stored in a warehouse, before being bricked up in the crypt at Warstones Lane Cemetery. The site of his old house, Easy Hill, is now in central Birmingham, and the very spiffy rebuilt 1930s block which replaced it is called Baskerville House, complete with a not-very-good Baskerville typeface sculpture.

I fancy a trip to the grave. Anyone with me?

Angry round-up

I have to go to meetings. My bosses are frogmarched to meetings involving 'break-out rooms', which have nothing to do with WW2 escape movies or the A-Team being locked in a fully-equipped workshop, and everything to do with trying to brainwash innocent people into complicity with an evil management which knows that Newspeak kills pesky ideas and independent thinking. It's soft fascism. Refuse to break out! Break free! Break down!

So here's Modern Toss's take.

Meanwhile, you may know that I'm a bit of a typeface nerd. My favourites are clear, modernist designs such as the wonderful Gill Sans, Johnston Sans, and Helvetica. I use Georgia on this blog because it's elegantly old-fashioned: Helvetica's a bit cold to use for everything and the other choices are limited.

This, of course, means that I am a typeface snob - according to Comic Sans, who you shouldn't use in essays.

We don't all have seventy-three weights of stick-up-my-ass Helvetica sitting on our seventeen-inch MacBook Pros. Sorry the entire world can't all be done in stark Eurotrash Swiss type. Sorry some people like to have fun. 

People love me. Why? Because I'm fun. I'm the life of the party. I bring levity to any situation. Need to soften the blow of a harsh message about restroom etiquette? SLAM. There I am. Need to spice up the directions to your graduation party? WHAM. There again. Need to convey your fun-loving, approachable nature on your business' website? SMACK. Like daffodils in motherfucking spring.

I am a sans serif Superman and my only kryptonite is pretentious buzzkills like you.

It doesn't even matter what you think. You know why, jagoff? Cause I'm famous. I am on every major operating system since Microsoft fucking Bob. I'm in your signs. I'm in your browsers. I'm in your instant messengers. I'm not just a font. I am a force of motherfucking nature and I will not rest until every uptight armchair typographer cock-hat like you is surrounded by my lovable, comic-book inspired, sans-serif badassery.

That guy's an asshole fun-loving party animal.

Now that's what I call typography!

From Hyperotomachia Poliphili, a weird 1499 semi-erotic dream narrative which is notable not just for its content and unpronounceable name, but because it's the first perfected Roman type by Aldus Manutius, grandfather of typography. Mmm…

Click the link for much more of the text. Click the image for a larger version

Font of all goodness

I freely admit that in some things, I'm a nerd. I'm proud to say that I love, and care about, typography.

So here's a bit of titillation, and a link to IKEAgate. Verdana indeed.

This blog, by the way, uses Georgia. I also love Gill Sans (especially Roman), and would love Johnston Sans (designed for the London Underground). Helvetica, of course, is the most progressive and lovely font outside these two (now a major motion picture). Do you have a favourite typeface?

(By the way, for the purists, I know that the title of this post is inaccurate. Fonts and typefaces aren't the same. But I was desperate for a good pun).

FireFly Letterpress from ilovetypography.com on Vimeo.

Transient random noise bursts and announcements

A quick bit of sport, even though lurker Jo doesn't like it: the US are in the Confederations Cup final after beating Spain 2-0: their biggest result since 1916.

Another book in the post today: Fiona MacCarthy's biography of Eric Gill, painter, sculptor, typographer and child abuser. Should we take down art (especially the religious art) of known paedophiles? Or does art transcend the weaknesses of its composer? I'm quite a fan of Gill Sans and its close relative, Edward Johnston's Johnston Underground (designed for the London Underground).

This Friday's conundrum

A nice one this week.

Who are your fictional heroes? With whom do you identify or admire? I'm opting for Arthur Dent ('I seem to be having trouble with my lifestyle'), who fruitlessly and accidentally travelled the universe in search of a decent cup of tea, which is disastrous. He also sported a fine dressing gown, as I have been known to, loved cricket and was pretty decent.

I've been accused of resembling Mark Corrigan too. It's true that he (and David Mitchell) is right about most things, worries about ordinary human decency, comes from Shropshire, wears a good dressing gown and the actor shares a birthday with me, but I'm ignoring all that. (Some people say Mark's conservative - they're wrong. He's just not a liberal). My university ID card has a photo of Mark on it. Nobody has ever challenged me.

(Today's xkcd cartoon is a lovely typography one - don't miss the mouse-over. Did you know I went to watch a film about Helvetica and own several books on fonts?).