Type: Seasons Greetings and Holiday Reunions

I hope so! It was my Christmas gift to myself!

For Holiday Blues, Post-Holiday Blues, and Other Familial Horrors.

Cards from a recent trip to the city.

I'm writing about type again (so soon?!) because I built up a nice collection of examples over the holidays that I've been wanting to post: big, bold white type on a cheerful red package that was a gift I gave myself, a really nice book cover atop a table at the local library, and a couple of cards I picked up on a recent trip to the city to see an old college friend. Good times ;)

Type: Ye Olde Printers' Shop

Foundry type.

Years ago, printers set type by hand, using complicated blueprints from designers as a guide. It seems like something from the 18th century now, because that's how fast technology moved has forward, but when I first became an apprentice in publishing, I still did some mechanicals (the schemata for books that go the printer: http://astoundingartifacts.blogspot.com/2011/03/original-science-fiction-artwork-pt-4.html) by hand. We used "stat cameras" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stat_camera) that made "repro", terms from graphic arts from a time gone by the was only in the 90s. Some people are nostalgic for hand set type, but rest assured, it was a long, slow, tedious, repetitive process best suited for temperaments that didn't change quickly. I wouldn't design today if I had to do it.

Plates for printing.

We separated into cover designers and interior designers for books because the rapid progress sorted out brains into those who could absorb computers well and those would couldn't, and most of the time it became the difference between the flash of art on the cover that drew in buyers in 3-5 seconds (which is how fast we take in information visually), and those we preferred the pace of turning a page slowly one by one. Oh, I know crossovers who can do both (yes, I can), but for me, this type of nostalgia has become about those who can merge left and right brain tasks, with the stereotypical "artist" or "designer" who thought our work was really about one task, and one task only, in the dust. For masters, it never really was. Welcome to the new world, global thinkers. Stretch out and grow (and think), because this is our time to shine (once again). 

Read it and weep....for joy:

http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/reading-writing-books/.