Scrambled Egg Decorating 101

In this DIY culinary clip narrated by Joe Emminger, artist Julie Paschkis dishes up a delectable hand lettered recipe for a perfectly scrambled egg. One serving guaranteed to please the whole family! 

Disclaimer : No eggs were harmed in the making of this video.

Bring on the Dancing Bears!

Hello again from Letterologyland! I happily return after many long months of hibernation. My sincere apology for not surfacing much earlier after abandoning my post rather suddenly last August. I'd like to say I was working on a fine print edition of Letterology musings, but this was not entirely the case. For the past year, I've been struggling with severe episodes of vertigo related to an ear disorder. At worst, the unpredictable episodes have been frequent and debilitating, with no relief but to sleep it off for a day or more. Lately, they are just as frequent, but less severe, and I'm slowly learning how to anticipate them. When I feel dizzy, I mostly just lie low and agonize until my balance returns. When I'm good, I feel like dancing! 
     I am very grateful to all the loyal Letterology readers who sent me their kind notes and queries while I was away, and I'm happy to have the support of good friends and family. It has been quite a humbling experience on many levels, and I savor all the good days, yet regret the continual loss of time. It is now all about finding balance, and that dang, yin-yang symmetry of life. As I struggle to keep balance in my equilibrium, I also struggle to find balance in my work, sleep and play time. I wonder if I will ever get caught up entirely, but as someone wiser than I once said, "there is never enough time unless you're serving it." Life goes on with or without us, and it is all I can do to keep the balance and dance.
     Enough about me however...I am eager to share so many exciting new and old things I have discovered recently, so please watch this space. The first feature I'd like to share now is of a lovely 19th C hand lettered ABC album I stumbled upon at the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair in October. It was displayed at the booth of White Fox Rare Books of Vermont, and owner Peter Blackman was kind enough to show it to me just at closing time. This unusual book is presumed to be created by a Maryette Shepard Bennet of Des Moines, Iowa around 1884, and contains her handiwork of dried seaweed letters, a popular pastime in her day. Her large, roughly six inch tall pressed seaweed letters nicely mimic the bifurcated wood type of posters and signage of this era, however her attention span dwindled some before completing it. Near the end, she chose to watercolor U, V and X, and then rendered Y & Z only in pencil. Over the years, I have seen many fine examples of dried seaweed images—often referred to as "nature printing"—but I have never seen such a charming book of mostly seaweed letters. For more information and sale price, contact Peter Blackman here. 

The Biggest Catch of Fish Lettering

Although several nice versions of this Prichard & Knoll trade card with novelty fish lettering were produced in the later 19th century, you might say they are now endangered. These two came from the same dealer and recently sold at auction for handsome sums. They are equally nice, however the first card has much finer detail held in the rainbow trout artwork and fish lettering. It was printed by Stahl & Jaeger Artistic Lithographers in NYC. The second card has the name reversed and several alternate letters, along with some clever wave-like handlettered text with flourishes below the fish which add to its appeal. They each have an eel ampersand. 
     Directly below is another unrelated trade card from 1871 with similar novelty lettering of fish. This particular card from Fisher Ice Boxes and Refrigerators of Chicago, found here, is sporting an amphibious eel for the letter S. Although this Fisher card is nowhere near as elaborate as the two above, the artist did provide some level of detail to the three-colored fish. I guess the imaginative art of fish lettering requires a fine line and some reel angling, just like fishing.

The art of fish lettering actually goes back much further than I had ever imagined. To track its amphibious influences required some further fishing of my own. Much to my surprise, I discovered this decorated initial S from a 7th or 8th century manuscript. The scribe likely had fun creating this with the aid of a compass. 
     For a completely different take, there is this contemporary Golden Fish alphabet created with goldfish tails by Lauren Nash. 

Dutch designer Monique Goossens uses actual fish called "sprats" to create her amphibious alphabet. And a bolder version you might want to wrap in newspaper from Handmade Font. Refrigerate after serving.

  

Flags & Fireworks of Every Description

Some nicely illustrated advertising covers sure to spark a Fourth o'July holiday spirit. Dates of these extremely rare envelope covers from various fireworks manufacturers and importers, range from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

And one seven-star confederate flag cover printed with wood blocks, and an imprint advertising a Georgia bookseller and dealer in musical instruments.
All covers via Schuyler Rumsey Philatelic Auctions 

Space-Age Packaging Design

With the rise of science-fiction novels and movies in the post-industrial age and the allure of space travel decades later, it is no wonder we all became fascinated with the anthropomorphic robot. The robot represented an optimistic future which would relieve the factory worker and provide us with more leisure time. After WWII, it was the toy robot which helped pave the way to economic recovery in Japan and the US, when toy manufacturers quickly seized the opportunity to meet a demand for this funny little tin man. The robot future was securely sealed when Japanese manufacturers introduced the first battery operated robot in 1955, and they continue to be on the march today. Robots purchased for under $5 even fifty years ago, now bring as much as $25,000 to $50,000 at auction when in their original packaging.
     Judging from the early robot package designs offered up at Morphy's Auction house this past February, the vision of space-age exploration was still being invented. More than likely, the packages were illustrated by nameless artists envisioning the future toy, sight unseen. As the package example above illustrates, the robot has little resemblance to the actual tin toy inside, however it is not without its charm and personality. Sidenote: No wonder his "eyes light up" when he sees that $110 price tag. What a steal! It just sold at auction for nearly $600. 

Space-age Wordspacing

Sometimes, I believe we take lettering and typography rules much too seriously. These space-age package designs are a true folk art, and were just as theatrical as the mechanical marvels they portrayed. The Japanese artists who hand-lettered much of the English text on the early box designs, gave little forethought to word and letterspacing or alignment, because they probably didn't even speak the language. They ventured where few lettering artists had gone before, bringing a whole new meaning to the term outer space. Graduated italic titles with airstream strokes characterized space-age travel; dramatic lightening bolt lettering symbolized electricity; and rivets and gears suggested the perfect industrial machine-age toy. 

The "Non Stop Robot" is fun for the entire family...until the batteries die out. And I'm still waiting for all that extra leisure time.

Typographic Trade Cards

Source 

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source