Welcome to Dalston: Bang!

Well, it isn’t that bad – really!  This poster mysteriously appeared near our house recently, and I just had to shoot it (no pun intended). It’s a rather cool looking thing – complete with all the requisite metres/scales that are required, presumably, to evaluate one’s prowess with the ol’ pistol. The holes (real bullet holes???) look quite real, but we can only assume we’ve got an artist in our midst. Dalston is the edgy, up and coming, new arty area of London,of course. So we hear. Bang.

Old is New: New is Old

It may be quite clear from a cursory review of my posts, that I am rather drawn to historical design and typography. While I am undeniably a creature of modern times, I just love old stuff. Old cars, old books, old art movements, and old type.

Well, I am certainly not alone, and while a curiosity has always been there among us designers, there is an interesting phenomenon at work at the moment – analog is becoming digital like never before – old is becoming new; vintage is vogue; forgotten is being remembered, and all in an unabashed celebration of “wear and tear” – the more visible clues of  ‘non-modern-ness’ the better! Case in point is the wonderful collection of vintage block type from Oliver Weiss’ Walden Type Co. Not only have they curated a really fresh array of “real vintage” letter forms (fresh even relative to the wonderful collections that Dover has produced in their books for years and years – more recently with digital scans included), but their collections are very affordably priced.  The Wild West Press collection (which the above specimens come from ) consists of 47 fonts and hundreds of little clip art pics, all for $49.95 USD.

Weiss explains the origins of Wild West Press collection here (from the introduction in the accompanying manual): To create this set of fonts, we have sifted through original material from the Library of Congress and a great number of other historical sources. Where ever possible,we identified the fonts used in each specimen and thus arrived at a short list of typefaces that printers appear to have favored most. We are pleased to make these fonts available for the first time in the context of printing in the Old West. As they are taken from original specimens they carry the chinks and dings of hard use, which should only add to their charm.

Well, I love them (of course), and though I only bought the collection about a week ago, I’ve already used them for the titles of a documentary I’m developing called Alfred & Jakobine (news to come!). Anyway, great work Walden Type Co. Keep it up, and thanks for your efforts and for remembering the forgotten. A small sampling from the 47 beautiful, scratched, uneven, worn fonts can be seen below.

Bubble Calendar Poster

Just heard about these great bubble wrap calendars.  They are hand made by bubblecalendar.com in Brooklyn, NY, they’re a nice, big 122cm x 46cm (48″ x 18″ ) and are typeset in Helvetica Neue. Perfect.

At just $29.95 US, gotta get me one (my birthday is coming up – hint)

Vintage Bollywood Posters

Last week I had a great visit back to Toronto, where I’m originally from. Had lots of time with family and friends, and through a few encounters and events, I was reminded that Toronto is a very creative city, with a lot of creative people, with a lot of amazing creative energy.

My sister Tania always reminds me of this with her wonderful, eclectic illustration work, but one other encounter did too. My new friend Dave Trattles, a very talented social documentary photographer who has spent a lot of time in India, had me over to his studio, and took me through his massive, wonderful collection of vintage Bollywood posters.

As you may know, India produces more films per year than Hollywood, and has done for some time. Hardly a new industry, India has been producing films on a grand scale since the 1930s. Dave’s collection features posters mainly from the 1960′s and 1970′s and many clearly show the influences of American genres including crime, horror, westerns, blaxploitation, as well their more home-grown elaborate musicals and melodramas. There are even “modified” versions of European posters, where nudity has been carefully “corrected” with painted on clothing!

Stylistically, the far-reaching influences I detected ranged from Russian Constructivism, early 20th century German film posters (Fritz Lang’s M), Paul Rand’s hand made compositions, American surf movie posters, blaxplotation movie posters, DC comics, on and on.

I just had to photograph (badly) some of Dave’s posters because, not only are the illustrations, compositions and colours wonderful, but the typography (both Hindi, Bengali [ed. thanks to kd for correcting me] and English) is equally beautiful and imaginative. I was even lucky enough to buy a few of the ones he had multiples of. Enjoy this small survey, and thanks Dave. Keep it up, and consider that Bollywood poster gallery!  Here’s a video about one of Dave Trattle’s photo projects: The Boxing Ladies.