Ace Jet 170

2CV etc

Excellent collection of vintage Citreonness, via the really very good Grain Edit.

Uranium Prospecting in Peru

That time of year is approaching: stuffed full of turkey, you retire to the drawing room to smoke fat cigars, while the ladies remain to discuss, well, ehum...ladies things.

And out comes Monopoly. With ruthless verve you conspire to build a mighty property empire...if only this money was real, etc. Much booze and argumenting later, down to your last few pounds, you throw the board asunder and shake a fist at your 6 year old opponent who's been merrily whipping your ass while sneaking sips from your fruit liqueur when you're back's turned.

Well, not in our house this year. This year we're fast tracking the kids and instilling a serious work ethic with the aid of the largely letterpressed 1955 board game Careers. But it's no game; we're not playing around here; practice that hand shaking, it's a career in politics for you me'boy.

And a merry christmas to you all!

Top of my Wish List

Oh sweet lord above! I haven't looked at Pedlars for quite a while but Neill here pulled a catalogue out of the package that arrived today and my heart started pounding at the hefty priced loveliness within. Specifically, the London Underground and Routemaster signage.

Out of my price range but if you'd all like to club together, just one of those Routemaster numbers would do nicely. Number 170?

de grote bosatlas

Jonathan Turner emailed me a while back with a link to his superb Flickr collections. Specifically, to images of this Wim Crouwel/Total Design designed atlas. He's got loads of great stuff.

His latest addition, "The Practical Idealists", looks brilliant too, so I've ordered a copy on Abe.

Ham Street x 4

If you've got A Smile in the Mind you'll know these stamps, designed by Howard Brown in 1991. Each shows Ham Street as seen on an Ordnance Survey map of a particular eras. The price of the stamp is incorporated into the map, appropriating the style of the time. Smile everyone!

Found Type Friday #42

It's the return of FTF, at last, and it's a beauty...

Matt from HouseOfBurvo has a copy of Letter-forms & Lettering, the swine! If only I could get my mits on it. Biggs remains something of an enigma with both my own and Matt's requests for more on the man unearthing naff-all.

So I'll ask again: if anyone knows anything, and I mean anything, on the very great John R Biggs please pass it on. In the meantime, enjoy excerpts from one of his many (I count around ten) books on print, typography and lettering.

Big thanks go to Matt for sending me the images. You might want to go and have a little look at his book, Be Invisible. Be Seen. Typography of HouseOfBurvo.

If anyone else would care to contribute, please do. I have a few things waiting to be posted so if you've sent me stuff, please be as patient as ever; there's a lot going on over here right now.

set_data_handler

Following on from the success of the Camel Case post, may I please present, to those unfamiliar, the dark art of "Snake Case".

Not often seen in print, James explains (in a comment), "There is another method...which I've heard people call "snake case" and "dash case" (though I don't think these are authoritative) which some other...languages like Ruby use. Here, spaces are replaced by the underscore character"

I rather like the underscore, slipping them in as bullet points sometimes. Usually bold and shifted up a tad to align on the baseline; it's the bullet point for the new millennium.

Thanks for the info James.

Loft and Found

Have you ever moved into an old house? I've only done it twice in my life having spent most of my adult life in (once) oh so easy to buy new builds. The first time I was a teenager. It was brilliant. Musty old rooms and, best of all, two sheds. It was so exciting, mooching around, seeing what treasure I could find: old tins, tools and enamel advertising signs (the house used to be a shop). Foraging is in my blood.

It wasn't until we moved to NI (just a few years ago now) that I felt the thrill of opening up an ancient loft hatch again. After we bought our current house, built in 1950 with just one careful owner, I couldn't wait to get up there.

That's where I found the old wooden box I use for a backdrop for most Ace Jet photos and in it was a miscellany: drawing equipment, dressmaking paraphernalia and, best of all, a cardboard box full of old, discarded photos.

Clearly the rejects; the wonky ones; badly exposed, poorly composed and sometimes wonderfully dull; their imperfections are brilliant, beautiful even.

There's loads more on Flickr now.