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2 October, 2007
Until the Next Type Tour...
Observing the rare Square-Sided Warbler (Chaetornis Quadratis) in its natural habitat.
After taking a moment to recover, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who came out for the AIGA/NY "Alphabet/City" type tour this past weekend. Being a native New Yorker, I've come to think of the city's lettering as a kind of home to me. So it was a real pleasure to see so many people ready to walk the streets for hours and look at letters, reaching for their cameras to capture an old carving, or some weatherbeaten shopfronts...
Continues...
1 October, 2007
More Type Tour Photos
John Kwo posted this Flickr set with some beautifully crisp photos from the type tour. Don't miss some of the great inscriptional lettering to be found on lower Manhattan's municipal buildings, including these spirited NH and TT ligatures.
Over at Villatype, Joe Shouldice has assembled some instructive comments to accompany his photos. Points for relating why signpainters' dropshadows point left instead of right, and defining the term "gaspipe lettering."
More goodies from Matt Sung, again on Flickr. Matt definitely shares our thing for distressed typography!
You've got to admire the rudeness of the above, from Michael Surtees' Flickr set. Michael captured some other excellent moments, including this unlikely but fabulous set of inscriptional, inline, sans-serif, old-style figures. — JH
30 September, 2007
Type Tour Photos
For those of you who missed this weekend's typographic walking tour that Tobias led for AIGA/NY, designer Karen Horton has uploaded a Flickr set containing some of the highlights. There are a couple of treasures here that aren't to be missed, including at least one rare architectural palimpsest that won't be visible for long. (Demolition in the city regularly exposes sudden windows into the the past, as in 1998 when Times Square was suddenly home to a 121-year-old advertisement for "J. A. Keal's Carriage Manufactory," painted in 1877.) Some of the lettering on the type tour is older still, and some of the newer signs may find themselves covered up by adjacent construction. So catch them while you can, or wait another 121 years to see if they resurface in 2128. — JH
Got other photos from the type tour? Let us know.
