Artwork for Natalie Wildgoose and her new EP Come Into the Garden, alongside posters for her release shows at The Cardigan Arms in Leeds, and Servant Jazz Quarters in London.

A range of period typefaces are used throughout. For the EP artwork, Anglo-Saxon Caps is used for the titles and Seta Reta NF for the credits. The show posters use Schwarzkopf and P22 Arts and Crafts Hunter for headers, with a combination of Archive Garamond (bold italic), Madisonian Light, Skeleton Antique and News Gothic (medium, bold) for subheadings and body copy.

Treasures from the Little Tokyo community were printed on-site using a laser printer and color paper.

Takachizu is a community archive, created by Rosten Woo with Maya Santos, that captures the stories and sites of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. The Japanese words “takara” (treasure) and “chizu” (map) join to form “Takachizu” (treasure map). The project started as an exhibit of Sustainable Little Tokyo, a creative community development strategy that utilizes collaboration and experimentation to advance Little Tokyo’s power over its future. It lives on as a website, soliciting online contributions from visitors (a little like this site!) and organizing them by category and location.

The site, designed by Folder Studio, is set almost entirely in one type family: Adesso, an under-appreciated, wobbly-but-readable face by Thierry Puyfoulhoux that always struck me as a sort of sans-serif ITC American Typewriter.

The companion Takachizu zine, a PDF download, adds Pitch, Cooper BT Bold, and Wubble, a typeface I initially mistook as a customized version of Adesso with a little extra wub. The two are perfect partners, as demonstrated on the first headline of the site where Wubble is used for the Takachizu logo inline with Adesso text. The Japanese text in the exhibit uses Sandoll GothicNeo.

My compliments to Tiffanie Tran and Tom Kracauer, who gave this noble project a very charming face.

Introductory page, with Cuneiform, Rustic, a fat face, and Madisonian for text. The drop cap with vine branches might be from the “First Series” of initial letters shown in the 1869 catalog of the Bruce foundry.

I stumbled across The History of Ink while browsing the bookshelf of a friend. It was published in 1860 by Thaddeus Davids and Company, one of the largest ink manufacturers in the world at that time.

I was instantly captured by the book’s title page, which contains no type but is a lesson in Victorian maximalist lettering. Perhaps even more impressive is the wide array of typefaces used throughout the text. You know you’ve got a winner when Rustic No. 2 isn’t even the second-weirdest typeface on a page.

The main text face is Madisonian, an unusual script-italic hybrid and ancestor of the slightly-tracked script. It was published by the Bruce Foundry around 1860, meaning this book might have been an early use of the typeface. Some might argue that Madisonian is not really a typeface for body text, but it certainly looks fantastic and connects nicely to the pens and inks that are the subject of the book.

The book also features a handful of decorative typefaces from the catalog of L. Johnson & Co., renamed MacKellar, Smiths, and Jordan shortly thereafter. Hairline Italic makes prominent appearances in running heads and supporting text. Lutetian, Southern Cross, Cicero, an open Tuscan, an outlined and contoured Tuscan, and Cuneiform are used for headers and other miscellaneous roles. (This book is actually how I discovered Cuneiform, which served as the inspiration for my latest typeface.)

This book’s type choices challenge every piece of conventional wisdom that I learned about book typography. In characteristic Victorian excess, everything feels like it is shouting. But if you think of this less as a book and more as a showpiece for ink by one of the primary players in the industry, it all begins to work and I am loving every minute of it.

Cover (lettering).

Title page (lettering), featuring the Latin motto Vox dicta perit, litera scripta manet (“A heard voice perishes, but the written letter remains.”). Lithography by Snyder, Black & Sturm, 92 William St., New York.

Half-title featuring an open Tuscan (“History”), an outlined and contoured Tuscan with hatch fill (“Ink”), Cicero (“Etymology”), Italian Text / Cuneiform (“New-York”), and Hairline Italic (“Thaddeus Davids & Co.”).

An example of Lutetian in use for headers, and Hairline Italic for running heads.

The italic used for the smaller text is unidentified.

“Conclusion” is set in Southern Cross. Note that the larger size used for the sample has less spurs.

Cicero and Hairline Italic used for the description of the plates.

Part of a list of how to say “ink” in 50 different languages. (This is lettered as far as I can tell.)

Patric King customized Madisonian Engraved for the logo of online Hollywood gossip rag Defamer, modifying the final strokes of the ‘a’ and ‘m’ for a cleaner connection.

Defamer nameplate as it first appeared on the site in 2004.

Updated logo and nameplate in 2006 incorporating Las Vegas Fabulous and Priori Sans.

Dinner to the Earl of Minto (governor-general designate of Canada), Lord Curzon of Kedleston (viceroy designate of India, and Rev. J. E. C. Welldon (bishop designate of Calcutta), Friday, October 28, 1898 at The Monico. Chairman: Earl of Rosebery, K. G. Also includes a list of previous governors general of India and viceroys of Canada. Menu printed with Berger & Wirth inks. All three honored persons were Eaton alumni.

This menu features at least two exemplars of fancy Victorian type: Bradley and Madisonian, an unusual mix of DIdone italic and Spencerian script.

Menu detail.