NoRelevance.com » Typography

Letterheady – Vintage & Not-So-Vintage Letterhead Designs

Art — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:49:15 +0000

Click on over to Letterheady, a one-page scroller featuring letterhead designs for such notable figures as Nikola Tesla and Adolph Hitler to obscure companies like the Liverpool-based Robot Salesmen Ltd. They appear to be legit, with sources linking to other sites from which the examples were culled. Some seem to have been Photoshopped to give them an empty, unused state. Who cares. They’re fun to browse and fit right in here with my love of Visual Junk.

Select Font. Copy and Paste “RADIOHEAD.”

Art — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:30:08 +0000

I like Radiohead. I’ve always liked them. From the earnest songwriting of their youth to the rejection and gradual acceptance of their own fame to their continued exploration of what “music” is. I also appreciate the attention they have always paid to the visual component of their works having hired numerous designers, animators, illustrators, filmmakers and artists to create their albums’ packaging, videos, posters, websites, t-shirts and more. And that is precisely why I was a bit perplexed to see the masthead on the website for their new album, The King Of Limbs.

As an all-around lover of type my first reaction to seeing “distressed” typography is to check if the designer simply tapped-out the letters in a distressed font or if they set the type in a non-distressed font and then, after getting the kerning and such just right, added said distressing. Why this matters is hopefully obvious at first glance of the word RADIOHEAD. It’s bad enough when the same distressed character is repeated in close proximity, but when you have a pair of these characters, such as the “AD” in RADIOHEAD you might as well circle them with a red pen. This pitfall doesn’t just affect distressed typefaces. Any stylized type that is supposed to have a natural, unrefined look—scripts and handwriting fonts, for example—often suffer the same fate when just tapped-out.

I don’t know who the designer of this piece is nor do I mean them any disrespect. I’ve heard the spark of genius last just a nanosecond, but, honestly, here’s all of about ten minutes of work. And don’t get me started on the copy-and-pasted-and-horizontally-flipped tree artwork on either side. Many OpenType font families these days come with contextual ligatures and similar “awarenesses” that can automatically substitute alternates of the same character for creating variation and, if there ever was a case for using one, it’s right here. Even if the font doesn’t contain such features, how much work would it have been to set the nine letters in R-A-D-I-O-H-E-A-D and then apply a layer mask to distribute the distressing randomly across the whole word?

Any other band and I wouldn’t have noticed. But Radiohead have raised the bar for themselves with each successive release that to see such lackadaisical artwork is a bit of a knock against them as a band. For me at least. I know this might sound a bit harsh, like a pass/fail test. No, I’m not that disappointed with them. I still really like them and their music. Nevertheless, it feels like something important—the band’s visual identity—that appears more like a mock-up than a finished piece…and was missed by everyone.

Hand-Painted & Hand-Made Signs – Antigua BWI

Art — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:15:09 +0000

JUST UPLOADED: Feast your eyes on over 20 beautiful, ugly, tattered and torn, hand-painted & hand-made signs from Antigua BWI. Signs from St. John’s, English Harbor, Rotten Hill and beyond are here for your drooling pleasure. View the thumbnail gallery or the slide show. Enjoy!

Eckhardt Signwork, an Inspired Font

Art — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:26:12 +0000

Finally, the fruits of my labor are made apparent in the new and ever-relevant dingbat font designed by Jeff Levine called Eckhardt Signwork. An archivist of forgotten letterforms, Mr. Levine was inspired by many a sign photo found in the collections on this website as well as on Forgotten-NY.com, a terrific site I once blogged about years ago. As with many of his previous fonts Eckhardt Signwork reveals a caretaker’s handling of the tattered lettering that lay within these scratched and rusty relics. And while I’ve certainly received emails from all sorts of folks thanking me for the inspirations, I’ve only seen a few examples manifest like this. I can’t wait to see “YES” appear in print one day soon!

Hand-Painted & Hand-Made Signs – Turkey

Art — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:48:36 +0000

Feast your eyes on over 60 beautiful, ugly, tattered and torn, hand-painted & hand-made signs from Turkey. Signs from Istanbul (not Constantinople), Izmir, Selcuk, Effes, Kabak and beyond are here for your drooling pleasure. View the thumbnail gallery or the slide show. Enjoy!

Hand-Painted & Hand-Made Signs – Vietnam

Art — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:56:06 +0000

Feast your eyes on over 40 beautiful, ugly, torn and tattered hand-painted & hand-made signs from Vietnam. Images hail from such cities as Saigon, Hanoi, Da Lat, Nha Trang, Hoi An, Da Nang and Can Tho just to name a few. View the thumbnail gallery or the slide show. Enjoy!

Hand-Painted & Hand-Made Signs – NYC

Art — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:04:30 +0000

Finally, I’m getting these photos up for your viewing pleasure! Some beauties and some real dogs, but all hand-painted and hand-made with love, spite, anger, ecstasy or indifference. Feast your eyes on 189 (for starters!) new-old signs located in and around New York City and get ready for a LOT more from Vietnam, Turkey and elsewhere. View the thumbnail gallery or the slide show. Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/norelevance/sets/72157622069352342/

Typeface, a film by Justine Nagan

Art — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:13:21 +0000

I’m looking forward to seeing Typeface, a film by Justine Nagan, which recently premiered at TypeCon2009 in Atlanta. The film’s tag line say that it’s “charting the intersection of rural America and contemporary graphic design.” Well, that’s right up our alley here at NoRelevance.com! The preview images and synopsis look and sound great and all of its early press seems to indicate that it’s a wonderful film. Hopefully more interesting than that other film about type that came out not too long ago. Speaking of the synopsis: “Typeface focuses on a rural Midwestern museum and print shop where international artists meet retired craftsmen and together navigate the convergence of modern design and traditional technique.” You had me at “typeface.”

A New Look For Jack [in the box]

Art — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:43:17 +0000

File this under “I don’t know who you are anymore.” From Duffy & Partners, the folks that brought you the Gattica-esque, futuristic redesign of, um, Fresca, comes the likewise 3D modernity of yet another “huh?” brand. Jack-in-the-Box franchises have existed under the now-retro-looking brand for some time now and, well, doesn’t everything need to be redesigned every so often in order for it to remain relevant? Take the departed Paul Rand-designed UPS logo that was ultimately replaced by the 3D shield design or the latest Pepsi logo that looks more like an outtake from a previous redesign than a finished piece, IMHO. Personally, I feel nostalgic for older brands and that probably makes me less objective as a designer or re-designer. The new Jack look seems to be hesitant to decide which century it wants to be a part of. On the one hand, the script type feels like a bit of a throw-back, but then the “in the box,” which has now been reduced to tag-line status, could easily say “x-box.” I think Duffy has done some good work, but this is not among its best. Just look at their Knob Creek suite of labels and try to compare the quality, relevance and messaging of those to this one.

War Posters

Art — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:35:39 +0000

From the Boston Public Library, check out these wonderful–if not strangely relevant–propaganda posters from WW2 Allied powers.

War Posters (flickr set)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/…[deletia]

I’ve got a victory garden going, don’t you?