I’m not sure that people looking to purchase a laptop are really the target market for Penguin books, but it could be a welcome diversion to all the tech.
“To disseminate the Penguin classics – Companhia das Letras in POV, we created an action to draw the attention of hipsters and also the new generation. We ended up pleasing everyone.” (Google translation from Portuguese)
This is a good omen: my vintage typewriter tins are featured on The Dieline today! Coincidentally, I am working on the tin design for A Collection a Day. (Thanks for the tip, Jen!)
Somewhat appropriate today: I’m definitely working, but not whistling. And we have mice in the house.
This manic-looking machine would allow you to typeset with a variety of styles: “Vari-Typers were not ordinary typewriters but composing machines that made professional looking camera-ready masters for offset (photo-lithographic) duplication.”
“This machine could use over 300 different type styles and write in 55 languages; it could adjust the space between characters, and even produce right-justified copy. Even though the Varityper enjoyed a successful career of about 60 years, you may never have seen one, for the machine was not generally adopted as a standard typewriter. Instead, it found a niche as a “cold typesetting” or “office composing” machine: it was generally used to produce neat, camera-ready copy for offset printing, at a cost much lower than that of conventional printer’s methods.”
Alas, the sad end of a Vari-Typer, photographed by Nivad on Flickr:
Leanda of One Little Bird has been creating these beautiful reproduction of tins from my typewriter ribbon tin collection. (You really have to see them large on flickr to appreciate the subtle textures and background patterns.) They’re also available as prints right here.
I haven’t had much time to indulge in my typewriter obsession lately! Here’s a quick post in ode to Fox-brand typewriters. Read more about their history here. {images from Polt, Fresh Ribbon and Early Office Museum}
Pentagram has an amusing site in which your personality traits determine your typeface. I’m “rational, understated, progressive, disciplined”… which according to their type psychologist means that I’m “courier”: the rhythmical and monospaced regularity of a typewriter. nice!
Enter the password “character” to start.
Bluebird from Cameron McKague on Vimeo.
I recently received an email from Cameron McKague (his work was featured in our “The Lost Art of The End” makeover series in issue 2), to let us know he has partnered with designer Jennifer Griffiths to create a typography-driven film based on a poem by Charles Bukowski. “It’s filmed in one continuous shot and all the lines from the poem have been integrated/designed into elements of the scene by both of us. We were trying to give it a timeless mid-century feel.” It was an ambitious project that involved designing each of the artifacts and then filming it so that each would coincide with the narration of the poem.
Cameron has some beautiful business cards for his company, Vitae Design. Visit his site for more from his portfolio.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
