Tag: Typography
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Another 400 year sync
History Today’s short features are good this month. The London Gazette is the longest-running continuous newspaper in Britain, and possibly in the world. I think one Dutch paper might be older. The Gazette’s starting point gives us another neat 400 year resonance. = = = = = START QUOTE: The Restoration government needed to manage…
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Prescription font
This item at Substack shows some actual prescriptions for liquor written during Prohibition. It was a nice loophole for wealthier drinkers and a nice source of legal profit for distilleries and doctors. The printed forms were set in Record Gothic, still used for official forms in the 70s when I worked in hot lead. For…
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Not entirely predictable
This is one of the EXTREMELY RARE cases where journalists actually work both ways. Via Nieman, journalists have universally derided Trump’s Napoleonic effort to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. This, of course, is more predictable than gravity. Journalists NEVER go along with anything ordered by Official Wrong Party. Locally, journalists…
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Why is it a mismatch?
Via Verge: Google’s branch in Japan has a habit of releasing annual silliness, more or less an April Fool gag. The latest is interesting from a tech history viewpoint. It’s a computer keyboard with a set of rotary dials. You have to locate the letter on the circle and pull your finger around to the…
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Printed before written
I linked this story of the Cherokee syllabary in previous item. It’s worthwhile at the current moment, so reprinting it from 2023. = = = = = START 2023 REPRINT: Okie blogger K. Latham posted an interesting brief feature on the Cherokee Advocate, a weekly paper in Tahlequah that was first founded in 1844. I…
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Fordist wins
Interesting article on local newspapers that still succeed. The top 25 by circulation, mainly digital now, include a few in the expected places like LA and Chicago, but the list is dominated by much smaller cities. The author notes that several of those smaller city papers are owned by the Newhouse chain, including Harrisburg. When…
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π Day
Keeping up a tradition… π Day again! Since I’m talking typography lately, I’ll hash and rehash a couple items from 2019. = = = = = Thinking about Trump as Pied Piper. When the metaphor first appeared in those DNC emails I didn’t quite understand it. After learning that Trump is Roy Cohn’s protege, I…
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Debunking Day 2
The new “history” of the Intel IC is part of a much larger fake “history” written by the Tech Lords to glorify and deify the Tech Lords. The “history” makes a special point of OMITTING the role of IBM. The San Francisco Tech Tyrants vanquished the old Rust Belt tech industry and rewrote the world…
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The Markup Man
This 1957 film on printing careers reminded me of the STUPIDEST decision I ever made. Speculating about the past is pointless, especially when based on information that wasn’t available at the time. Some of this info was available, some wasn’t. The film itemizes the various specialties in printing. One is the Markup Man, who lays…
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Back to Lessing
In October I switched from bus to taxis. At that point the laziness was necessary. After a series of hard dental sessions and bad weather I had built up an overanxious and overstressed condition, with bad balance, constipation and lots of weird little anxiety symptoms. The balance trouble made it nearly impossible to stand steadily…
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Brutalist typography
This 1970s film is teaching journalism students about proper design. It’s unapologetically brutalist, in the same denaturing spirit as Corbusier in architecture or Cage in music. Remove all beauty. Remove all decorations. Remove all variation and improvisation. Only stark colorless rectangles are allowed. Replace it with squared-off type masses… Short words, short sentences and short…
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Only driven by
Books have algorithms too. The physical aspect of a paper book is its algorithm. The font, paper quality, margins, spacing, and binding determine whether the book can be perused occasionally with difficulty, or kept in a bookholder to read at leisure. I always read books in a bookholder, usually while eating. With an especially good…
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It’s even older
Noticed an article in NewSuperstitionist, describing how causality can be re-introduced into the quantum world. Why bother? Causality exists in the REAL world. Nature doesn’t care if we set up an abstract spiritual world of angels on pinheads or live/dead cats in boxes. Quantum is a modern religion, not a description of reality. Quantum theologians…
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Easy correction
When a demon worries about an event or phenomenon, whether it’s “global warming” or “pandemics” or AI, the demon is really informing us about his plans. Psychopaths blame and frame innocent bystanders. I didn’t imprison and strangle you for two years, some dude named Virus imprisoned and strangled you. I didn’t turn off your electricity…
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Morse Day!
[I tried to write the title in code, but WP insists on condensing the spaces so it’s unreadable.] Today is Morse’s birthday! Since we tributed his original invention a couple years ago, we’ll just reprint. = = = = = START REPRINT: Last week I took a linguistic look at Morse and cranks and eccentrics.…
