13 May, 2008
Remembering Rauschenberg
If you draw a line from Shinro Ohtake to Joseph Cornell, and another from Ed Fella to William Harnett, you will find yourself at a monumental, unavoidable intersection. At this great pinnacle sits Robert Rauschenberg, who died yesterday at the age of 82.
I would have liked to have known him. His sincere appreciation for the pedestrian, which energized modern art, ultimately came to inform a major theme in modern typography as well. “I really feel sorry,” he once said, “for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly.” This sentiment applies equally to the once-maligned universe of vernacular lettering: how many of our typefaces born of humble origins would have happened without Rauschenberg?
Most especially, I think I would have enjoyed his sense of humor. His famously Erased de Kooning Drawing merely hinted at the wickedness in store: the obituary in today’s Times describes a fine exchange with fellow troublemaker John Cage. Once, while staying at Cage’s apartment,
"[Rauschenberg] decided he would touch up the painting Cage had acquired, as a kind of thank you, painting it all-black, being in the midst of his new, all-black period. When Cage returned, he was not amused.”
Maybe this was a prank born of the same exuberance that inspired his earlier work, with its bicycle tires and taxidermied eagles, or maybe it was a concise way of unseating a highflown comrade’s hypocrisy with a couple of merry brushstrokes. (It was probably a little of both, which makes it all the more delightful.) Whatever it was, I’m glad that it nourished the decades of work to follow. —JH
13 May, 2008
For Your Next Type-Themed Party
Apparently we're not alone in our love of ampersands: dig this lovely work by Dublin designers Conor Nolan and David Wall, now available as an A1 poster (23" x 33") from WorkGroup for the princely sum of €10. The WorkGroup site includes a quick process video that I take to be highly abridged! —JH
1 May, 2008
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
Just kidding. A beauty though, isn’t it? This page of tastefully arranged number signs comes from a type specimen book issued by the Schelter & Giesecke foundry of Leipzig, around 1900. In a good type specimen, no piece of typographic material is too insignificant to merit proper attention, but to see such a peripheral symbol treated with this kind of thought and artistry is really touching. —JH
30 April, 2008
Unicode Poetry Slam
I feel certain that I've seen the logo for Fermata Festival on canvas totebags at the greenmarket, and that Fox Fraction is part of the Action 10 News Team. I'm equally convinced that Falling Family and Feathered February are Lifetime Original Movies, and that Fit Fita Five once opened for Afrika Bambaataa at the Mudd Club. Legendary turntablist Fricative Fritu was the driving force behind that act, before leaving to found Forward Fostering Four in 1979; signed to Furx Records, they were one of my favorite bands, along with Flexus Flight Flip and Facsimile Factor — who these days you can catch on Fly FM, home of a great morning drivetime show hosted by Fongman Foo...
Novelists and MCs seeking inspiration are hereby directed to the Unicode Character Name Index, once a mere reference for cosmopolitan type designers, but now also a wellspring of found poetry (and a sure-fire way to blow an entire afternoon.) The above nonsense comes from adjacent entries on the F page, and other letters are no less fertile: doesn't the M page make you yearn for the comeback of wrestling legend “Manacles” Manchu? —JH
Eric Siry adds:
You neglected gangsta rap legend Fat Fatha, Thai-Senegalese throat singer Fthora Fu, and goth pioneers Functional Funeral — as well as the front man's solo excursion into atonal noise rock, Fwa Fwaa Fwe Fwee.
