John's mention of Octopus, where he asked rhetorically...
Could anyone find another use for the face shown in this headline (identified here as "8850n")? In what other context could those flailing swashes be appropriate, except a headline about an octopus?
...stirred an old memory. Back in the early 70s (when else?) I used Octopus for the company name on my first business card - for a business called Bowser Toys. It worked fine, giving just the whimsy needed.
Thanks John!
Submitted by rstevenson on Tue, 10/26/2004 - 06:48.
Good article. I'm just glad I was too young to end up developing a nostalgia for bad craft... As far as I can tell, when Tight-Not-Touching resulted in good design, it was a coicidence. :-/
Thanks, John, for reviving these examples of what I consider great typesetting. I know they are dated, and I know it is no longer popular to set type so tightly, but having "come of age" in the Seventies era of Photolettering and ITC, I'll still take an in-your-face Machine-Bold headline over just about anything contemporary.
When I had a small type shop in the early Eighties, one of our standard mark-up notations was TBNT (tight but not touching). But when I set type for myself, the notation would be: TAO (tight and overlapping)!
I think a lot of this came about specifically because of the PhotoTypositor and it's rivals--these machines forced you to work one letter at a time and lent themselves to drama (and letterspacing was actually much harder than tight setting).
Times have changed, for sure, but I do hope we see a revival of the best examples of this era. When I need inspiration, I still go through my much-yellowed copies of U&lc for examples of this sort. And since usually the type direction in those issues came from the type designer, I always felt certain faces (like Benguait) were designed to be set very tightly!
Submitted by GeneGable on Mon, 10/25/2004 - 05:32.
Stirred a memory...
John's mention of Octopus, where he asked rhetorically...
Could anyone find another use for the face shown in this headline (identified here as "8850n")? In what other context could those flailing swashes be appropriate, except a headline about an octopus?
...stirred an old memory. Back in the early 70s (when else?) I used Octopus for the company name on my first business card - for a business called Bowser Toys. It worked fine, giving just the whimsy needed.
Thanks John!
Finally, good to be 30-something!
Good article. I'm just glad I was too young to end up developing a nostalgia for bad craft... As far as I can tell, when Tight-Not-Touching resulted in good design, it was a coicidence. :-/
hhp
Tight and Touching!
Thanks, John, for reviving these examples of what I consider great typesetting. I know they are dated, and I know it is no longer popular to set type so tightly, but having "come of age" in the Seventies era of Photolettering and ITC, I'll still take an in-your-face Machine-Bold headline over just about anything contemporary.
When I had a small type shop in the early Eighties, one of our standard mark-up notations was TBNT (tight but not touching). But when I set type for myself, the notation would be: TAO (tight and overlapping)!
I think a lot of this came about specifically because of the PhotoTypositor and it's rivals--these machines forced you to work one letter at a time and lent themselves to drama (and letterspacing was actually much harder than tight setting).
Times have changed, for sure, but I do hope we see a revival of the best examples of this era. When I need inspiration, I still go through my much-yellowed copies of U&lc for examples of this sort. And since usually the type direction in those issues came from the type designer, I always felt certain faces (like Benguait) were designed to be set very tightly!