1962 was a momentous year for the United States of America. John Glenn became the first American, and only the second human, to reach orbit;1 the Kennedy administration successfully negotiated the nuclear tightrope of the Cuban missile crisis, taking the world within a hair’s breadth of nuclear war in the process;2 and NASA launched AT&T’s Telstar, the world’s first telecommunications satellite, ushering in a new era of instantaneous global communications.3 Consumer society too was reaching new heights: advertising ruled, and the ad men were at the peak of their game. Read more
Can you help trace these graphic designers?
The first of two interrobang articles is well underway, but before it’s published I’d like to do everything I can to trace two particular graphic designers who were active back in 1962.
First is Larry Ottino of New York, author of The Art of Lettering with Pen & Brush and a specialist in hand-written scripts produced using brushes and pens. I’ve been unable to find contact details for either Mr. Ottino or Lester Rossin Associates Inc., the erstwhile publisher of his book.
Second is Joe Carter of Chicago, and here I’ve drawn almost a complete blank. All I know thus far is that both he and Larry Ottino submitted interrobang designs for inclusion in the May-June ’62 issue of Type Talks magazine, published by the now-defunct Advertising Typographers Association of America.
If you know how to reach Larry Ottino, Joe Carter or their respective families, I’d be very grateful if you could let me know via the Contact page.
Stay tuned for the first interrobang entry this weekend!
The Pilcrow, part 3 of 3
¶ Taking pride of place at the head of every new paragraph, the pilcrow had carved out a literal niche for itself at the heart of late medieval writing. Boldly inked by the rubricator, pilcrows grew ever more elaborate and time-consuming to add. Unfortunately the deadline is not a modern invention; occasionally, time would run out before the rubricator could complete his work and the white space carefully reserved for the pilcrow went undecorated. With the advent of the printing press, the volume of printed documents to be rubricated grew exponentially and it became increasingly difficult to attend to them all. The pilcrow became a ghost, and the indented paragraph was born in its stead.1
Coming soon: The Pilcrow, part 3
The third and final part of the story of the pilcrow is in the works. We’ll be covering the pilcrow’s place in modern typography and in particular how the controversial sculptor Eric Gill used it in his hand-printed book An Essay on Typography. Take a look at the first and second parts of the story to refresh your memory, and check back this Sunday for the final entry!
As always, thank you for all the comments and suggestions, and please keep them coming via Twitter, Facebook or Shady Characters itself.
The Pilcrow, part 2 of 3
Compared to Rome’s traditional pagan religion, Christianity was altogether a different beast. Whereas paganism relied on oral tradition and its practices varied according to local custom, Christianity instead emphasised conformity and written scriptures.1 If Judaism had been the prototypical religion of the Book, Christianity embodied this ideal with an unprecedented vigour, possessing a symbiotic relationship with the written word which simultaneously drove the evolution of punctuation and benefited from a concrete, written dogma. After all, the Word of God had to be transmitted with as little ambiguity as possible.2 Read more