Say it Loud ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

If ever there was a most affable character, it is the exclamation mark! It's no mere line, dot or square, as it can be shapely, ultra-fat, and expressive, all at the same time. Used sparingly, it can make a party out of a dull sentence, and put a period to shame. Yet, when paired with large cap letters in repetition, it can be UTTERLY ANNOYING!!! None-the-less, it is worth celebrating this bold mark, which I neglected to do last week on National Punctuation Day (September 24th) when it escaped my notice! So today, I showcase some random appearances of this simple glyph. 

Just above is a Paul Rand cover design for Great Issues in American History, Vol. 2. Source: Scott Lindberg/Flickr

Opposite is Anton Chekhov's novel, The Exclamation Mark, which was first published in 1886. Good Reads gives it a "four star"!

All four of the album covers above are from Seattle's own Jive Time Records, Project Thirty-three, an incredibly rich and well-catalogued archive of modernist album cover designs. The Admiral Stereo cover is dated 1960; The Hitmakers, 1967; Percussion Exotique, 1960; Grady Martin and the Slewfoot Five, 1964. 

This 1964 cover on the Blue Note record label, with a flury of fat face italic exclamation marks, hits all the right notes! It was designed by Reid Miles (1927-1993), the inventive designer who showed us all what jazz looked like. Miles left Esquire magazine in 1956 to work at Blue Note where his career stretched over another decade and four hundred-plus cover designs. Despite his disinterest in jazz, his lean and expressive designs influenced a generation of music fans and designers alike. You can find a comprehensive archive of his cover designs here, a great interview with his former photo assistant, Wayne Adams at New Ish, and a nice write-up on Miles and his work over at Retinart, which is where I also found this brilliant Hi-Fi video below. Originally produced as a promotion for the upcoming concert season at the Bellavista Social Pub in Siena, Italy—this video brings Reid Miles type-laden covers to life—wear, tear and all!!!

Punctu@t!on Matters!

National Punctuation Day sort of escaped me yesterday, but I didn't want to 

let it go by entirely unnoticed here at Letterology. To put a finer point on it...

visual communication relies on punctuation. It reminds us when to breath, 

when to stop, when to pepper our speech with enthusiasm, and when to 

question. It behaves as signposts and wayfinders to help us navigate language, 

and signal action. Punctuation characters are the supporting cast for all the 

other 26 letters of our alphabet. Without them, words fail and language has no 

texture. 

     Learning when and where to apply punctuation is a perennial challenge at 

times—certainly for me that is! Then there are the diverse styles of marks—

each with various features, which we seldom see as we are too busy paying 

dues to 26 U&lc letters. By comparison, the marks may seem inconsequential, 

but enlarge them 800% and you will discover they all have distinct features. 

One of the best graphic examples I've seen of this is Heidi Neilson's 2003 book, 

Typography of the Period. It is a visual information guide examining the 

diversity of the period. Delightful, and one I always saved to show my type 

students in the past.

In the page spreads above you see a Jenson period and a Papyrus period.
     The many exclamation marks at top are in order of appearance from left to right: Avenir Regular; Bank Gothic Medium; Bodoni Book; Centaur Regular; Century Schoolbook Bold; Cooper Black Regular; Eurostile Bold; Agenda Bold; Gotham Bold; Optima Bold; Grand Central Bold; Adobe Jenson Pro Bold; Stone Sans Semi; Franklin Gothic Med Regular; and Whitney HTF Bold.

And a few punctuation haikus from National Punctuation Day:

Alas my text friend
Punctuation's gone again
How do I read this?
- Larry McGee

Exclamation point
means "I am so excited!"
CAPS LOCK is just loud
- Morgan O'Brien

I love the em dash.
It's a lot easier than
The 50-yard one.
- Lex Friedman

Emotional Characters

Andrea D'Aquino has an uncanny ability to make her stories come to life with her playful and expressive artworks as evidenced by The Secret Life of Books I and II above. 

From Andrea D'Aquino's self-promotions series, A Modern Guide to Punctuation, exploring the imagined personalities and neurosis of various punctuation marks. This series and other cool prints of D'Aquinos' are available for purchase at Big Cartel.

¶unc†u@t!*n

From Vintage Marvels Etsy shop.