Trustworthy all caps Futura Bold and Futura Light with many of its fancy fi ligatures, in an ad for Acrilan acrylic fibers made by the Chemstrand Corporation. From Chemical Engineering News, April 1957:

Chemstrand is an associated company jointly owned by the American Viscose Corporation and Monsanto Chemical Company. It was chartered on May 16, 1949, to carry on research, development, manufacture, and sale of synthetic fibers.

The Chemstrand Corporation world headquarters is located at Decatur, Ala., also the site of Chemstrand's modern research facilities. The company operates its Acrilan* manufacturing plant at Decatur and the Chemstrand Nylon Plant at Pensacola, Fla. The latter is the first wholly-integrated nylon-manufacturing facility in the United States and the largest of its type in the world.

Detail.

The long, justified ATF Garamond body copy is typical of early 20th-century advertising, but the Futura headline reflected a new trend in 1930s design, having recently arrived in the U.S. from Germany. It’s also the right companion for Dorothy Shepard’s modern, streamlined illustration.

This clipping is held in the Dorothy and Otis Shepard Collection at Letterform Archive, some of which and can be seen in the library’s Online Archive.

Source: www.christies.com License: All Rights Reserved.

achtung.photography:

Moï Ver’s book Paris is iconic in the history of photobooks.

During 1927 Moï Ver (born Moses Vorobeichic, changed later to Moshé Raviv-Vorobeichic) studied at the German Bauhaus in Dessau, under such luminaries as Moholy-Nagy, Josef Albers, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. Following his time at Dessau Moï Ver had a remarkably productive period. Paris 80 photographies de Moï Ver was published by Éditions Jeanne Walter and Ein Ghetto im Osten – Wilna / The Ghetto lane in Wilna was published by Swiss publishing house Orell Füssli, both in 1931.

Source: www.achtung.photography Image: achtung.photography. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.achtung.photography Image: achtung.photography. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.achtung.photography Image: achtung.photography. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.achtung.photography Image: achtung.photography. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: photohistorica.myshopify.com Photo by Photohistorica. License: All Rights Reserved.

His visionary style of imagery and avant-garde layouts have inspired many photographers and art directors since. Paris 80 photographies de Moï Ver contains collages and double exposures which are not known to exist as actual photographic prints. It is as if the photographer purposefully chose the book as the ultimate form of photographic expression. Arguably Paris established the photobook as an independent medium and art form.

His choice for the cover design of this book echoes that of E.O. Hoppé’s book Deutsche Arbeit published the previous year, yet Moï Ver takes it one step further.

The Deutsche Arbeit jacket spine uses Futura, issued a few years earlier in 1927. Paris also employs the face throughout its interior, such as the introduction and postscript. The Futura style selection and alignment on the title page is typical of German modernist typography of the time. You can find similar layouts from Ver’s contemporaries, Otto Neurath, Walter Dexel, and Kurt Schwitters.

Source: www.photoeye.com © 2004 Maya Raviv-Vorobeichic. License: All Rights Reserved.

Facsimile edition published in 2002 by Éditions 7L.

Source: gallica.bnf.fr Bibliothèque nationale de France. License: All Rights Reserved.

Advertisement for the book, as it appeared in Arts et métiers graphiques, No. 23 (May, 1931).

In 1931, the Limited Editions Club in New York commissioned Jan van Krimpen to design a two-volume series for the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. Shown in the images, the Odyssey is hard-bound with a dark blue cloth surface, contained in a yellow slipcase.

The book title "The Odyssey of Homer" only appears on the spine in all caps, embossed in gold. Other than drop caps, there is no illustration inside. The pages' top edge are gold glided, and the reading edges are deckled. Some pages are not even cut open.

There are four kinds of watermark on many pages, indicating this paper is specially made for the job: lettering "The Limited Editions Club"; lettering "Homer's Odyssey"; ornament; and human figure.

This Homer was also the first use of Van Krimpen's own typeface, Romanée, casted at 16-point. Romanée was an upright style originally conceived to accompany Enschedé's Kleine Text Cursyf ("[for] Small Text Italic" in English), rediscovered in its archive. At that point, Van Krimpen had yet to design his own Romanée italic. Therefore the introduction, which is set completely in italic, uses Monotype Van Dijck.

This book has an edition of 1500, all signed by Van Krimpen himself. Photos are taken from my own copy, No. 352.

Peter Matthias Noordzij of TEFF (The Enschedé Font Foundry) partially digitized Romanée with Fred Smeijers in 1995. This digital Romanée was based on the 16-point metal, and only has an upright. It was used to set a Van Krimpen biography, titled Adieu æsthetica & Mooie pagina's, and also a subsequent small booklet, presumably an exhibition catalog, titled The Aesthetic World of Jan van Krimpen. Perhaps because the italics were never completely digitized, TEFF's digital Romanée was never released.

In TypeCon 2016 I met Smeijers, and asked him why it stalled. He responded, "[he and PMN] had a difference of vision" in how the italics should be digitized.

Watermark: “The Limited Editions Club”

Watermark: “Homer’s Odyssey”

Watermark: ornament.

Watermark: Human figure.