The Biggest Catch of Fish Lettering

Although several nice versions of this Prichard & Knoll trade card with novelty fish lettering were produced in the later 19th century, you might say they are now endangered. These two came from the same dealer and recently sold at auction for handsome sums. They are equally nice, however the first card has much finer detail held in the rainbow trout artwork and fish lettering. It was printed by Stahl & Jaeger Artistic Lithographers in NYC. The second card has the name reversed and several alternate letters, along with some clever wave-like handlettered text with flourishes below the fish which add to its appeal. They each have an eel ampersand. 
     Directly below is another unrelated trade card from 1871 with similar novelty lettering of fish. This particular card from Fisher Ice Boxes and Refrigerators of Chicago, found here, is sporting an amphibious eel for the letter S. Although this Fisher card is nowhere near as elaborate as the two above, the artist did provide some level of detail to the three-colored fish. I guess the imaginative art of fish lettering requires a fine line and some reel angling, just like fishing.

The art of fish lettering actually goes back much further than I had ever imagined. To track its amphibious influences required some further fishing of my own. Much to my surprise, I discovered this decorated initial S from a 7th or 8th century manuscript. The scribe likely had fun creating this with the aid of a compass. 
     For a completely different take, there is this contemporary Golden Fish alphabet created with goldfish tails by Lauren Nash. 

Dutch designer Monique Goossens uses actual fish called "sprats" to create her amphibious alphabet. And a bolder version you might want to wrap in newspaper from Handmade Font. Refrigerate after serving.

  

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 Spirit of No.12

Source: 20six Fresh

Source: Fun For All

Win or lose a competition, you have to love the game spirit. Seattle faces San Francisco today in the NFC championship to determine the next Superbowl contender, and the fans are bat-shit crazy. I readily admit, that I'm the last football fan, but I've become quite amused with Seattle Seahawk's team spirit and embrace of the number 12, signifying a tradition of the "12th man"—the team's greatest fan. The number 12 can now be seen in every possible orientation, fontstyle, size and spacing—at the top of the Space Needle, in corn mazes, on pizzas, in the produce aisle...I even saw a homeless man sporting a 12th man flag on his backpack. Recently spotted on the gum-covered bricks of Seattle's Post Alley gum wall was the number 12 gum "collage".

Source: Chromix

Source: Darla Lorbeski on Seahawks fan page

Source: Me

Source: Idalina on KUOW FB page

Source: Tacoma News Tribune

As traditions go, Seattle cannot rightly claim the "12th man" as their own. Legend has it, they stole it from Texas A&M University where it originally began in 1922. Despite this claim—the mystery remains. In a recently unearthed 1870 photograph from the Washington State Historical Society, mountain climber's, Hazard Stevens and P.B. Van Trump, are seen holding an official 12th man flag which they carried to the summit on the first ascent of Mt. Rainier (previously known as Mt. Tacoma). They've got game.

Blackletter in Fall Colors

Letterology is on Fall break again this week as I am preparing for the opening of the Camp Stories, Illustrated exhibit at the University of Puget Sound Collins Library in Tacoma, this coming Saturday. Instead, I bring you re-runs of some of my favorites from the Letterology attic. Thanks for your patience!

I'm so behind the times, this post is now two years old. It could have been last week, as it is still just as relevant. This cover was originally published for the Fall 2011 issue of T Magazine, a supplement of the Sunday New York Times. Los Angeles landscape designer, Judy Kameon and photographer Erik Otsea created this living Autumnal blackletter T, and I couldn't help but notice how much it resembles an elder gothic cousin; the rustic old growth T below. I've included a family snapshot of other extended members of this woodsy gothic alphabet whose roots go way, way back. ;^)

:: Rustic Old Growth Gothic Alphabet via the Letterology Archives.

Corn Lettering From Space

In 2002 French architect Edouard Francois designed Labyrinthus, in collaboration with Luc Vincent as part of an invitational corn maze design. It was a tribute to French author Victor Hugo. With the aid of digital mapping, corn mazes have become a cash crop for farmers. With a simple image search for corn maze, dozens of mazes will pop up there. Most are giant sports team mazes or political candidates; mazes with sponsorship from local car dealerships; and Star Wars. There is even an Oprah maze and a giant fingerprint. Much of the lettering is what I would call a Corn Gothic, with an occasional italic tossed in for emphasis I guess. And the navigation of corn typography certainly takes on a different role than text does in print or on screen. I know mazes require a wayfinding path between letters most often, but would it kill the designer to use a script font now and then? Readability from space people! For some real topographical typography, get a fine lettering artist to do the job. Even the directionally challenged might better be able to find their way out then...provided they can spell. From seeds of great lettering artists, grand designs can grow. Do plant soon however.

Labyrinthus by Edoardo Francois and Luc Vincent. Just below, the Fritzler Family Farms offers up Peyton Manning and the US Department of Defense. Must be in defense of corn mazes?

The Kraay Family Farm in Alberta established the Guinness world's record for the largest QR code. Just below are two mazes (found here and here) from the Jonamac Orchard Farm. The Boy Scouts were probably required to use a compass to find their way out of their maze.

In hopes that you find your way, the Willamette Valley Fruit Co. grew a 13 acre corn maze. And Batman leaves Gotham long enough to stand guard as the Maze Crusader at the Basse's Farm. 

You will never get out of this one alive. From the makers of high fructose corn syrup via NBC News.

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...