Say it With Rocks

Rocks and pebbles are for geologists and letterologists alike. Spreading the letter love of found type on this Valentine's Day! oxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

NaNoWriMo ReDo

November is National Novel Writing Month; or NaNoWriMo, for those in the know. Now in its 14th year, NoNoWriMo originated to encourage creative writing "from anyone who has ever thought fleetingly about writing a novel" according to their website. The goal is to complete 50,000 words or less in 30 days. 
     Rob Bowker of the entertaining Typewriter Heaven blog in the UK, recently checked in from the Typosphere to send me his own surrogate version inspired by this annual event. He created his first NaNo typewritten book (NaNoTyBo?), The Micro-Book Typed, and completed it by the 4th of November.

Typing on a 1950s Olivetti Lexikon at 12 characters per inch leaves little room for a wordy text, so Bowker wisely chose to just write a DIY textbook of sorts, on how to type a 16-page book using only a single sheet of paper. Written in concise language, he answers the questions of Why and How to go about typing a small book on a typewriter. Bowker, who frequently types blog posts on one of his many typewriters, also provides helpful hints on formatting monospaced text and creating illustrations using characters, pattern and texture. The Micro-Book Typed is currently available from Issuu as a free downloadable PDF ready to print, fold, stitch and trim. Bowker suggests more of his typewritten chapbooks, possibly with spreads and even illustrations, may be in the pipeline soon.

In more recent posts, Bowker offers a number of other downloadable PDFs of some fun DIY typewriter "Graphikubes" from his personal collection. As an added bonus, he also suggests a beer-of-the-day in many of his frequent posts—though not certain if he advocates drinking while typing however. 

This gif was made by Ryan (Magic Margin) Adney within an hour after Bowker 
originally posted his first typewritten micro-book. 

A Short History of Typewriters With Blackletter

While continuing on the theme of fraktur—or blackletter type in this case...
I cannot overlook the monospaced typewriter versions. Blackletter typewriters (otherwise referred to as frakturschrift in German), are difficult to find today, as they were made mostly for the German market up until 1941. German authorities outlawed the use of Blackletters at that time as they considered them to be "Jewish letters", and as I reported earlier this week, Blackletter virtually disappeared from print for nearly 50 years. Not until Disneyland adopted the use of a stylized Blackletter for their logotype in the mid-1950s, did it begin to see a reemergence. In the 1990s, Blackletter's revival was truly sparked when many styles began to be digitized, and their proliferation has continued to steadily increase ever since that time.
     The Blackletter keyboard layout above is from my Flickrfriend, Georg Sommeregger's beautiful 1933 Urania Piccola (I'm guessing an Italian typewriter?) You can also see a nice monospaced typewritten sample from it which he posted here. 

 

This keyboard example comes from the partially working 1903 German Remington No. 7 below. Proud owner, Olivander tells the happy story of its' revival over on Collapsing World. Despite the 30 year difference in age of these two typewriters, the differences in the two manufacturers' Blackletter fonts are quite subtle. 

This 1926 Senta 3-bank portable typewriter from Germany belongs to Adwoa at RetroTech Geneva. You can read more on the blackletter typewriters there and find some good links including this one for a free download of the F25 Blackletter Typewriter font.  

A keyboard sample of the Blackletter on the Senta typewriter.

Artful Engraving

Neenah Paper and Cranes have joined forces to introduce a new site devoted entirely to The Beauty of Engraving. The gallery offers current examples from designers and printers and further digging provides useful information on choosing papers and tips on preparing artwork for engravers. As it is one of the oldest printing processes, a nice bit of history is included for context. You can also submit your own work for their gallery and order a copy of the first beauty of engraving print sample below while supplies last. It is designed by Christine McMahon of Two Paperdolls and printed on Crane's Lettra paper by Artistry Engraving & Embossing Co. Nice work!

Copper engraving plate used for the limited edition print.

A Green promotion piece for Artistry Engraving in Chicago, designed by Thirst. It is printed on Arch Vintage Rag paper made from 100% recycled clothing.

A perpetual calendar designed by Moscato Design and printed by Artistry Engraving & Embossing Co. Below are 2 examples from a vintage monogram sample set printed by Dempsey & Carroll engravers.

::Thanks to Armin at Quipsologies No. 36 for this engraving goodness.

Spreading The Love

Christopher James of Porridge Papers in Lincoln, Nebraska is the Cupid of the Typosphere. Since 2008, he has been hosting Love on the Run, a free pre-Valentine's Day event merging vintage typewriters, love notes and special delivery services. Anyone can stop by his shop and type out a love note on an old working typewriter, onto some nice Mohawk Ultra Fuschia paper and have it sent to a designated Valentine by special delivery. Each note gets rolled up to fit inside a little bottle, and then packaged inside a letterpressed bag made with handmade wildflower seed (for Spring planting), and delivered in time for the Valentine's holiday. With four years of Cupid expertise, James would now like to assist businesses in other cities to adopt this Free Love campaign. Stop in at his Kickstarter site to watch a short video and learn how you can help spread the love in your neighborhood in the future. My only question to him is, "Do you have any Pink-Out on hand in case of typos?"  
::Thanks to my friend Alyson Kuhn of Felt-n-Wire for spreading the typewriter love links.

Spooky Free Fonts: Be Very Aware!

Wild Wood a true type font from Jessica Slater of Jester Font Studio via Font Space.

Mars Attacks! A true type font from Jens R. Ziehn of Filmhimmel via Dafont.

You Murderer from 1001 Free Fonts.

Feast of Flesh A true type font from Nate Piekos of BlamBot from Dafont.

Zombified a true type font from Chad Savage of Sinister Visions via Dafont.
:: and many more via Hongkiat

Yours Truly

If you happen to have made it to the first Cincinnati Type-in recently, you may have seen these lovely letterheads from various typewriter companies. Richard P, featured the letterheads above on his blog Writing Ball. They were contributed by Peter Weil who writes the typewriter Ephemera column for Richard's journal ETCetera: Journal of the Early Typewriter's Association.  They are full-size scans available from himself truly.
      Taking a Q from Writing Ball, the 5 letterheads you see below from various Swiss typewriter companies were recently added by Shordzi on his Sommeregger blog. He kindly made them available for downloading here. Unfortunately there is no way to duplicate that metallic silver of the Baggenstos Hermes letterhead. Thanks for sharing guys!










The letterhead in the IBM Selectric below isn't available for download at this time. Nice display of Gill Sans Light, which would benefit even more from some kerning.

Ghost Letters

Designer Roland Hörmann shares some wonderful examples of ghost typography from his walks through Vienna where he lives. He kindly shares desktop wallpaper downloads of the collection from his blog link on his website just so the letters can have an afterlife.

Should I Work for Free?

Jessica Hische provides her Work for Free chart for free. Get yours here. Available for Google translation too.

Meet Your Type

The good folks over at FontShop are offering up this wonderful little field guide to love and typography. Written in a quirky manner by Erik Spiekermann, he spells out the birds and B's of the ABC's and other case studies of finding your perfect type. You will find other helpful primers on typography on FontShop's Education page too. Available as PDF downloads here or for purchase as print versions.

Heavy Metal

Find free stuff and great deals on metal revival fonts from ArchiveType. All fonts available in OpenType.