Letters from 2013

Unblogged signage and assorted typographic encounters from the last year. (Still trying to wrap up 2013.)

Spelling debacle on the contents page of Bloomberg Businessweek.

Click image to enlarge

I stood in awe before these sample alphabets by an early 20th Century sign painter, offered by Ricco Maresca at last year's Metro Show. This year's show  is in a couple of weeks. Here's another grid of alphabets from the same series.

Vintage record carrier

Papel picado with the names of the bride and groom festooned the pre-wedding fiesta, just north of the border.

The Elkhorn Saloon's claim to fame is that it is the second-longest operating bar in California. The humble, historic watering hole has been serving drinks in San Miguel continuously since 1853.

A visit to the Hell's Kitchen Flea Market on 39th St., followed by
one to the Cupcake Cafe.

I must visit Baltimore again when it's not blistering hot.

Colonoscopy humor? This evacuation-route map was posted in my gastroenterologist's office.

Works by Christopher Wool at the Guggenheim. Show closes January 22nd.

Driving through Maine

Cornell in early June. Ithaca was at its finest--rainy and lush. New, since my college days, are the safety nets now flanking bridges that cross the gorges.

On Thanksgiving morning, the clowns meet up at 81st St. and Central Park West to "Join the Parade!"

Instead of apologizing for in-store construction with "Pardon our appearance," Bergdorf Goodman tunes into their customer base with "We're Having a Little Work Done …"

The Magritte show at MoMA, which just closed, was filled with the surrealist's enigmatic use of words, carefully lettered. MoMA senior designer, Sabine Dowek, describes how she arrived at her design for the wall lettering here. 

Robert Indiana

EAT (top): Farnsworth Museum, Rockport, Maine

EAT, LOVE: Whitney Museum show

Original Crumb

On a recent Friday night, a certain corner of New York’s fashionable Upper East Side was overrun by a decidedly unfashionable crowd. Fans of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, came out in full force, patiently waiting in a line that circled the block, for entry to R. Crumb: Lines Drawn on Paper. The retrospective show is now at the Society of Illustrators, through April 30th.


In an AP interview we learn that Crumb is mystified as to why anyone would want to see his creations in a gallery. “For me,” he says, “the printed copy is the magic moment.”

Consider this 90-piece exhibit covering four decades of inked output, a ‘magic moment’ for the rest of us—the opportunity to see original drawings from Crumb’s own hand, fetshized as art. Kind of like getting the rude, perverted, adolescent utterances straight from the maestro’s own filthy mouth. It’s something you don’t want to miss.




There are, actually, some fashionable Crumb fans.



Click image to see it bigger.

“God bless Crumb. I’ve always been happy that there was
someone as sick and twisted as I am.” —George Carlin

R. Crumb: Lines Drawn On Paper
A Retrospective of the work of R. Crumb

Tuesdays 10:00-8:00, Wednesdays – Fridays 10:00–5:00, and Saturdays noon–4:00.

The Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators
128 East 63rd Street
New York, NY 10065
212.838.2560

Ends April 30th


Crumb has a terrific website.
I highly recommend the timeline of his comics.

Sprinkles are FREE! The Art of the Blackboard Menu

I perked right up when I saw these blackboards in Salty’s, where I ducked in for a soft serve after my long, hot, afternoon walk the other day. There were only kids working, so I couldn’t get an attribution on the adorable sea critters and hand lettering. They were pretty sure a professional artist came in, but no one knew whom it was. So here’s to the anonymous artist of Lavallette, N.J. and blackboard artists everywhere who give us info with a smile!

For blackboard menus at the complete other end of the spectrum, see Steven Heller’s recent post We Don't Have to Use No Stinkin' Designer! about the hand-lettered bistro menus of Paris