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Welcome to this month’s roundup of type-related info and entertainment. Today, we fish type out of the Thames, explore printed dance notation, get ready for an intensive type design program in Paris, light a book-scented candle, look into a mid-century ad man’s desk book, gaze adoringly at typographic embroidery, pay tribute to Aldus Manutius, watch […]
LÄS MER PÅ I Love Typography »
DEN HÄR ARTIKELN KOMMER FRÅN Frere-Jones »
Our conscious minds want to draw one shape, but our eyes need to see another. Part of typeface design is managing this eternal friction between logic and optics. It’s always there, no matter the style.
This new series of posts will explore what I call “typeface mechanics”, the behind-the-scenes work that makes typefaces visually functional. It is what placates the stubborn oddities of human perception, helps or hinders the user, and informs long-standing conventions of design.
The Tunnel Garage once stood at the corner of Broome and Thompson Streets in Soho. Built in 1922, it had an air of pride uncommon for a garage, announcing itself in grandly proportioned capitals. The letters were dignified, if a bit quaint, and I had used them many times as a wayfinding marker in the neighborhood.
When I designed Gotham, I canvassed the city to photograph examples of that particular genre of lettering. The photo excursions soon became a separate project, documenting public lettering in any style. I took over three thousand photos between 2002 and 2006, visiting every block in Manhattan between Battery Park and Fourteenth Street. One of my first stops was here at the Tunnel Garage. Billboards had been encroaching for some time, but the glazed terracotta letters were still as dapper as I remembered.