Entries filed under
posters
The amazing Leeds Playbills website contains nearly 5,000 medium-to-high resolution scans of vibrant playbills dating from the late 1700s up through the 1990s. The database, part of the Leodis digitization project, represents all the playbills in the Local Studies Library collection, with samples from a variety of historic theatres in the city of Leeds, as well as a group of related circus bills. Interestingly, the project is funded by the UK National Lottery‘s Big Lottery Fund (formerly the New Opportunities Fund).
Many of the prints showcase an impressive array of large and ornamented types. Not surprisingly, the circus bills are among the most vibrant on the site, many utilizing multiple colors with chromatic typefaces, illustrations, and sensationalist prose. There are also a few non-typographic lithographs with elaborately colored lettering and illustration.
Other than the obvious wow factor (!!!), the prints are interesting for several typo-historic reasons. First of all, they show many typefaces that aren’t seen as frequently on this side of the Atlantic, and perhaps even in the UK. Furthermore, it shows the type in real-world use (not as in self conscious type specimens), revealing how the printers organized the information through variations in letter style and layout. One advantage of the higher resolution enlargements is that you can get a sense of how much care was put in to the printing of each piece (the range is wide). Many of the bills also have a credit line citing which print shop ran the job, allowing an evaluation of each shop in comparison with others, and giving info about which venues employed which printers. Finally, some of the items give an interesting view in to the practice of updating information by pasting on additional slips of paper or overprinting.
Unfortunately the small thumbnail images make browsing a bit tedious, and some of the full-resolution images show streaking from faulty scanning equipment. The site does have some useful functionality though, including the ability to filter content according to dates, keywords, and venues.
While wide time range is represented, the most interesting material to me, typographically, is that from the mid-to-late 1800s — coincidentally also the same period in which wood type was at its height of production and use. I’ve compiled a collection of details from some of the more interesting samples below, each linked back to the original page where you can access an enlarged, un-cropped, view.
This winter, any typophile finding themselves in the New York City area is advised to make a trip to Chelsea Market to see the exhibition of work by Tennessee’s Yee-Haw Industries, up until January 2. I saw the show just before Halloween and was not disappointed to find the significant presence of wood type printing that I expected.
Chelsea Market has retained much of its historical brick-and-iron factory atmosphere, so it acts as a perfect backdrop for the work described as “industrial” letterpress. When I made my visit, there were all kinds of Halloween displays interrupting the show — some ghosts and cobwebs even draped over the art — but perhaps upcoming holiday decorations will be less distracting.
From Yee-Haw’s official announcement:
Yee-Haw’s work will adorn the vast and cavernous Chelsea Market, located in the Meat Packing District in Manhattan’s West Village. Over 100 letterpress pieces all hand-printed from our wood cuts & antique type in our Tennessee studio. We made over 50 sewn paper “quilt squares” specifically for this show and brought along some old favorites. Chelsea Market is an enclosed, urban food court and shopping mall in New York City. It is housed within the former Nabisco factory complex where the Oreo cookie was invented and produced. The 22-building complex fills two entire blocks bound by 9th and 11th Avenues from 15th to 16th Street.
The fact that I haven’t yet mentioned Yee-Haw on Woodtyper is surprising, since they are among the top users of wood type in the world, alongside shops like Hatch Show Print. They clearly embrace the aesthetic and charm of wood type, and even have produced an amazing poster series with specimens from their collection (probably the highlights of the show at Chelsea Market, in my biased opinion).
Below you’ll find photos I captured of the work from the show, but I’ve consciously only shown enough of the details to whet your appetite. You’ll have to visit in person to get the full experience of the pieces in this unique setting.
What: Yee-Haw Industries industrial letterpress exhibition
When: October 4, 2009–January 2, 2010
Where: Chelsea Market; 75 9th Avenue, New York, NY 10011 [map]
Admission: Free and open to the public
(These images are also gathered together as a set on Flickr)
Though not as abundant as the wood type offerings from TypeCon 2009, attendees of this week’s ATypI conference, Typ09: The Heart of the Letter in Mexico City will have the chance to attend at least one wood type related event.
On Monday, October 26 (that’s tomorrow!) from 4:35–4:55 PM, Professor David Shields from the previously mentioned Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection will present Engaging Abundance: Physical Research & the Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection:
The goal of cataloging the Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection is to expand upon the historical information previously collected. Central to my research is physical engagement of production processes, providing direct knowledge of the type forms. Investigating wood type blocks directly, reveal unique planing patterns produced during manufacturing, providing a strategy to identify manufacturers of un-stamped wood type. Through this engagement, I have been able to chart the impact the tools themselves had on driving the derivation of styles throughout the 19th century, and investigate the impact wood type manufacturing processes might have on contemporary digital type production.
When I visited the Rob Roy Kelly Collection almost exactly one year ago, I saw some of the preliminary work David was doing in relation to this topic, where he was printing and examining the sawblade marks from milling on the back of type to see if there were any patterns that might help in providing extra information.
Comparison of milling patterns from the back of wood type at the Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection.
I’ll be attending the talk, short as it is, and hope to report back here afterwards with a summary.
The following day, Tuesday, Oct 27, from 4:20–4:40 PM, Dr Catherine Dixon (senior lecturer at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and curator of the bi-annual letterpress conference at St Bride Library) and Henrique Nardi (founder of Tipocracia) will present Lambe-lambe Letters: Grafica Fidalga, São Paulo:
Lambe-lambe (literally ‘lick-lick’) is a vernacular printing tradition once popular for promoting theatre and spectacle in Brazil. Long in decline the city of São Paulo still boasts a working lambe-lambe printshop, Grafica Fidalga. Here is found a rich history of hand-generated letterforms carved as wooden blocks used to print vibrant poster series. While the persuasive aesthetic of these posters and the nostalgia of Grafica Fidalga has been celebrated by some, this presentation sets out a fuller account of the remarkable process underpinning the work, the joy of documenting it through hands-on engagement and the filmed and printed results of this collaboration…
Grafica Fidalga has seen quite a bit of coverage in the design press recently, including a cover for Creative Review, so it will be interesting to see what other information Dixon and Nardi have to share about the decidedly rough and ready print shop.
Cover of the Jan 2009 issue of "Creative Review", designed by Grafica Fidalga
Other than that, conference attendees have the opportunity to experience a genre of wood type printing in Mexico City (though not officially part of the conference) that is less prevalent in other parts of the world: promotional posters for “lucha libre” Mexican wrestling events. One of the largest wood type lock-ups I’ve ever seen was for such a poster at the Sensational!: Mexican Street Graphics exhibition that came through MassArt back in 2007.
Large wood type forme for a lucha libre poster in the "Sensational!: Mexican Street Graphics" exhibition at MassArt, October 2007
Lucha libre posters in the "Sensational!: Mexican Street Graphics" exhibition at MassArt, October 2007
