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17 December, 2009
Typographic Gifts for Designers, Part 17
I wonder what sort of psychological profile one could draw from my favorite childhood possessions. I neither played nor followed football, but clung to my NFL lunchbox that showed all the team helmets with their different insignia. I had no special interest in English History, but was fascinated by the chart in our living room that traced the succession of British monarchs from William the Conqueror to Queen Elizabeth II. A kindergarten teacher gave me a chart of rocks and minerals found in the northeast; a kindly docent at the South Street Seaport Museum gave me a diagram showing how to communicate the alphabet using morse code, semaphore, and maritime signal flags. The list goes on and on, and only a graphic designer will understand the common thread: I had a thing for data visualization.
Whether these objects provoked my interest in design or simply resonated with it, they were marvelous things to have around as a kid. I’m therefore delighted to see that a company called HistoryShots is offering for sale a similar collection of visually engaging prints, not merely suitable for framing but actually framed. Clockwise from top left: The History of the Union Army and Confederate Army, The Conquest of Mount Everest, Visualizing The Bible, Death and Taxes, The History of Political Parties (Part II), and the Race to the Moon. —JH
Information Graphics Posters from HistoryShots
26 November, 2008
Change We Somehow Can’t Quite Believe In, Though We Just Can’t Put Our Finger On It
Every four years, the month of November tenders an exciting opportunity for financial speculation, this year offering an almost practical alternative to your lending institution of choice (still solvent as of presstime) or your flameproof mattress. Behold the high-stakes world of political memorabilia, now doing brisk business on the internet.
To my surprise and delight, this year’s “process pieces” about the election included dozens of articles about the Obama campaign’s exceptional graphic design standards, none of which failed to mention Gotham, the campaign’s official typeface. Obviously not every piece of Obama paraphernalia featured the font — organizations unaffiliated with the campaign certainly produced their share of ad hoc design, and this was a candidate who attracted a tremendous number of independent enthusiasts — but the typography employed by the campaign itself was remarkably consistent, which is what made it newsworthy.
A search for “Obama” on eBay yields more than twenty thousand items, including these three pieces of questionable Obama memorabilia (Fauxbamarabilia?), none of which features the campaign’s signature typeface. First and last are rally signs set in Gill Sans, which is close to Gotham, but no cigar. At the top it’s paired with Lucida, at the bottom with Times Roman; let me suggest to anyone interested in counterfeiting printed ephemera that you look a little further than the fonts that came with your computer. The middle one has a certain primitivist charm that suggests the work of a cheerful amateur, but the legend “Paid for by Obama for America” marks it as a likely fraud: if it’s not, it’s the only piece of American political printing I’ve ever seen that doesn’t also include a union bug.
Anyway, if you’re hunting for genuine souvenirs, try the campaigns themselves. Both the Obama and McCain organizations are still unloading their extras. —JH
4 November, 2008
Voting Irregularities Already!
The donkey is universally recognized as the symbol of Democratic Party of the United States. Except inside voting booths in New York State, where affiliation with the Democratic party is marked by a five-pointed star. Midwestern voters indicate the Democratic ticket with a rooster, except in Missouri, where the symbol has traditionally been the Statue of Liberty — coincidentally also the symbol of the Libertarian party, which appealed to use the symbol when they joined the ballot in 1976. They’ve settled for using the Liberty Bell instead, though some Missouri Libertarians also use the symbol of the mule. Not the Democratic mule, mind you, the Missouri mule. The mule is the state animal of Missouri.
Those who suspect that Republican iconography will show the same mastery of political organization as the rest of that party are correct: Republican candidates are always signified by an elephant, except inside voting booths in Indiana, New York, and West Virginia, where an eagle is used instead. And in these states, as well as the 47 others, the eagle is also the national symbol of the United States itself.
The Chicago typefoundry of Barnhart Brothers & Spindler showed these “Election Typecuts” in their Catalog 25-A, published around 1930, and 78 years later I think my district is still using this same art. Cheerily Barnhart Brothers accompanied their samples with this legend:
When changes in the political situation — the birth of new parties, revision of election laws, or other causes call for new emblems or characters other than shown above, our facilities enable us to produce the material promptly at moderate cost.
I’m ready. You? —JH
15 October, 2008
For America.
Typeface: Gotham Extra Narrow Bold
This summer, the Obama campaign asked me to design a typographic poster for the Artists for Obama series. It’s now available sold out at the Obama for America website, in a numbered edition of 5,000. —JH
POSSIBLE. A limited edition poster by Jonathan Hoefler for Obama for America.