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31 July, 2008
Type Night at Delta House!
In a description of how type is made using the sand casting method, author Rob Roy Kelly quotes the eighteenth century printer Christian Friedrich Gessner as follows:
“The ingredients of casting sand are fine sand, to which is added calcinated baking-oven glue, the redder the glue the better. This mixture is finely pulverized and passed through a mesh sieve. Thereupon the mixture is placed upon a level board. The center is hollowed out and good beer is poured into the cavity — much or little according to the sand used. This is well stirred with a wooden spatula.”
Both H&FJ’s recycling bin and our expense reports are testament to the importance of “good beer” in the type design process, but to have this connection documented in the literature? The potential tax write-offs are positively off the chart. —JH
| Share | • | Tags: | Beer, Typefounding, Wood Type, Food & Drink, Science |
24 October, 2007
My Big Fat Grecian Lettering
Greek Week Continues!
Making good on his standing promise to rid the world of enamel signs, and warehouse them in the office for our personal amusement, Tobias came across this little bit of heaven in a local antique shop. The full image features a stalwart gent in lederhosen hoisting a beer stein, but for typophiles, this is where all the action is: cousin to the Grecian italic, it's a (1) faceted (2) chromatic (3) blackletter that would have made a nice auxiliary to our Knox typeface. Three great tastes that taste great together! — JH
| Share | • | Tags: | Grecians, Blackletter, Chromatics, Decorative, Beer |
