Letterforensics 101

In my last post about the mid-19th century alphabet, I gave acknowledgement to the printer/publisher, Charles Joseph Hullmandel and the likely British artist of these rustic landscape letters, who is known simply as "L.E.M. Jones". I even asserted that this Jones character was a man, which in retrospect, was rather presumptuous of me. It maddens me somewhat when artists of this caliber and standard can fall into relative obscurity, yet their work has survived in at least two of the world's leading art museums. My curiosity of L.E.M. Jones lead me to do some further sleuthing, and I located another similar work to those I posted yesterday. This single "graphite" drawing of the C&K is from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Jones is listed as "active" from 1800-1870, and the image is described as "Alphabet Book Design (Letters C and K)". The only distinguishing mark on the sheet is a blind stamp appearing on the lower right corner with the word "Bate" above a crown. 

Can you spot the differences?

Pardon my redundancy to repeat the last two images from yesterday's post again, but I wanted to draw a comparison between the two versions. On closer examination, it appears this C and the K from the British Museums' archives is just slightly different than the "graphite" CK drawing from the Met Museum seen at the top of this post. In addition to the ever-so-subtle differences, the CK version is drawn in two or more colors of grey it appears, and I am wondering now if this had anything to do with Hullmandel's invented method of adding "tone" to his lithographic prints, as I mentioned yesterday. This largely depends upon what his method was, but maybe the Jones CK drawing was a master guide to indicate where to add the 2nd color for the final print. If someone has further insight to add or correct me, I would love to hear it. I am not a lithographer or printer by any measure, but just have a curiosity about printing processes. All of this brings me no closer to identifying Jones, but I like to think that I am connecting a few of the dots here. Below, are two macro images of the graphite CK drawing for a much closer view. 

Update: Mystery Solved

Friend of Letterology, and face behind the scholarly Circuitous Root, Dr. David M. MacMillan has helped to solve the mystery behind the artist and the printing of Hullmandel's Landscape Alphabets. He sent me a text image from Michael Twyman's recently published book, A History of Chromolithography: Printed Colour for All, which explains much about the story. According to Tywman, Hullmandel found himself in a public spat with an associate of printer, Charles Engelmann, who was said to be the inventor of chromolithography in 1837. This rivalry between the two printing firms lead to some fierce competition. Engelmann published "an inventive little alphabet book with the title The Landscape Alphabet (Paris, 1830), each letter being drawn in a more-or-less contrived way within a landscape setting." Using the very same title, Hullmandel then published his own, more elaborate version of a landscape alphabet the very next year. It was for a charity publication using the beautiful crayon-drawn letters by a Miss L.E.M. Jones. (She was indeed a woman artist, as I second-guessed.) It would make sense then to believe that this 1831 edition, with the grey tone letters doubled up on each page, was Hullmandel's first printing. His second edition with just one letter per page printed black only, came later. I am grateful to Dr. MacMillan for bringing Michael Twymans' findings to light, and connecting all the dots.

A Mid-19th C Landscape Alphabet

Experimentation with letterform design is hardly a 21st century novelty. Letters have long been a form of expression and connotation for us, just as words themselves form meaning. These 26 rustic examples of representational letterforms, were published in the book, The Landscape Alphabet, nearly 200 years ago. Many of the illustrated letters are signed, L.E.M. Jones, but little else is known of him. His stone lithographs are a bit sensationalized, as most things were in that era, but they are further evidence of our long devotion to the alphabet and desire to manipulate letterforms. The entire landscape alphabet was printed and published by Charles Joseph Hullmandel (1789-1850), a remarkable painter and printer in his own right, and one of the most prominent figures in the development of lithography in 19th century England. He helped to popularize romantic landscape painting after developing a method of reproducing gradations in tone—lending a soft watercolor effect to his lithographic prints—and was also instrumental in the technical development of color printing. After meeting Alois Senefelder, the inventor of stone lithography, in 1817, Hullmandel began his own press a year later in London. In 1824, he published his first edition of The Art of Drawing on Stone, a complete and comprehensive manual to the success and failures of lithographic printing. He later partnered with Joseph Fowell Walton in 1843, and continued to print under the firm name of Hullmandel & Walton until his death in 1850.

I am grateful to the good people at the British Museum for displaying the entire 26 letters of this landscape alphabet on their online gallery. Below are a few of my own favorite leading characters. One puzzle still remains in my mind, and that is just who was this L.E.M. Jones character who worked in near total obscurity? Was this perhaps a pen name for Hullmandel, or was he so fascinated by the studied hand of Mr. Jones and his landscape alphabets, he chose to publish his elegant work? 

Update: For more information regarding L.E.M. Jones and The Landscape Alphabet, please read my updated post, Letterforensics 101.

The R is Back

Bettina Hansen/The Seattle Times

The legendary Rainier R is back and fully lit. This dramatic photo was taken last night at the installation and lighting party in celebration of the return to it's original location at the former Rainier Brewery. For nearly half a century this landmark letter was a beacon on the Seattle skyline. The original R met it's demise after the brewery was sold thirteen years ago, and it was replaced with a giant slab-serifed T for Tully's Coffee, who then owned the building. Naturally, the city reviled it. A cap T is no cap R, mind you. I hate to show favorites, as I love all 26 letters (& ampersand), but the character T is just too dang boring. Blame it on Tully's Coffee if you will, but the R's got game. Am I the only one who thinks the R should have been permanently installed atop Mt. Rainier? How stunning it would be to have a snow-capped R overlooking our region ;)

     Local Seattle sign shop, Western Neon, who rebuilt the giant red R, gave it a cook's tour around the city before the installation at the old brewery. The giant red script letter drew crowds at every stop in this neighborhood crawl. 

  

Last year Seattle ad agency, Wexley School for Girls, began a promotional campaign to restore the Rainier R, and created this wonderful little stop-motion video. You can see more photos from last night's party uploaded by R fans here. 

Restore the R from Wexley School for Girls on Vimeo.

Plastic Fantastic Signs of the Time

The introduction of molded plastic signage has proliferated across the American landscape since the 1960s. Uvex, a division of the Eastman Chemical Products, and a subsidiary of the Eastman Kodak company at that time, was responsible for a large part of this growing trend in fabricated signage. Many businesses soon traded their old handpainted and electric neon signage for the shiny new backlit plastic models made of many colors. However, the consequences of this new swing in advertising had a devastating impact on an elite industry of hand signpainters who couldn't compete with the behemoth plastic companies. Greater harm is the plastic's damaging environmental toll taken on our landscape and oceans as mounting evidence has since revealed. 
     Uvex wasn't the only company responsible for producing molded plastic signage, but it did have some reasonably nice marketing materials. Concepts in Uvex, their trade catalog promoting their modern and "versatile, high impact plastic sheet" of "lustrous beauty" was published in the 1960s. No designer listed, but it certainly has the earmarks and influence of Alexander Girard's colorful work. And you gotta love the Vanna White of plastic molded letters.

  

::Via the Hagley Digital Archives.

Building Letters

From Ombu Architecture via Open Culture. Reminds me vaguely of a wonderful architectural alphabet designed by my former student, Shinya Iwaki back in 2009 for an experimental typography class. Except his alphabet was based upon actual buildings which resemble the actual letters from A to Z. Worth a revisit!

      

Shin researched and illustrated each building based upon the original architectural designs, and drew them all to scale. He arranged them in alphabetical order and created a poster with credits for each building. He also letterpress printed his Cityscape alphabet in an edition of 100 as a set of 26 individual cards. Wishing now he would release a second edition...

 

Stone Signspotting

Alan Brignull of Essex, England spotted all of this stonecarved lettering loveliness and more in his wanderings around Ipswich and Colchester. He calls them his "out & about" series. I am hoping he will continue to share far more 
of his outside wanderings in the future. Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: Go outside, the graphics are amazing! —Anonymous

As an aside, if you are interested in doing some of your own signspotting, Brendan Ciecko recently released Fontly, a new iPhone and web app for capturing, mapping and exploring the world of vintage typography. You can create and share your own digital archive of typographical wonders and use the free app to locate intriguing lettering finds in new places you might visit. Fontly promises to be an endless amount of fun & typportunities for all!

Istanbul Archetypes

Turkish designer Geray Gencer found inspiration in the architectural details and multi-cultural heritage of Istanbul when he designed his decorative typeface Istanbul Deko. I rather like the alternates on the two posters at top and below. Check out more of his impressive design work on Flickr, including some nice bookcover designs and posters.

Lego Letters in Space

Cartoonist Mark Anderson must have been drifting off in space when he developed this spaceship alphabet of LEGOs. All the other LEGO spaceships have been done already he claims. Sort of brings a whole new meaning to the term letterspace.  

The Q-ship in space really makes me smile ; )

Anderson calls his Z vehicle, a space-mersible and imagines it servicing other spaceships and doing scientific work around gaseous planets. Wow! LEGOs must be made of some pretty gnarly plastics to stand up in that environment.

A vehicle of a more earthly kind from his own cartoonist mind. More here.