Letter Press font found

So, due to some research in the homework this week, we found a new font that is freely available for download and installation to your computer to use an abuse. This semester I had a project using "Letter Press" that really peaked my attention. I attended the Wayzgoose annual festival last year in 2011 in Two Rivers, WI and was enlightened to the old style of letter press. I have been infatuated ever since. This font does much of the effect, although to the trained eye, it still reveals that it is still a fake.

The beauty of this font is that it represents the letter press style pretty accurately. The fault is that no letter press letter repeats itself identically. But this is a fantastic reproduction of the overall effect is it is required in moderation. Another flaw of this installed font is that it doesn't appear to contain simple punctuation such as apostrophe's and comma's. 

Kelly Services Wordmark

I had taken this photo on my phone weeks ago. I'm not sure why I haven't used it yet. I think it is just a time management issue with this blog posting thing. Sorry to let all of my classmates down.

I have always liked the way that the KELLY temp employment services word-mark looks. Years ago, when I first arrived in Champaign county, this was my first stop and they worked tirelessly to get me in the door at Plastipak where I worked for ten years. Unfortunately, even they can't assist me in new employment other than manufacturing. I haven't even checked back with them in quite a while now though.

Anyway, I have always been attracted to their word-mark and I haven't ever really analyzed it before now. I ran my image through What Font Is and the results weren't extremely clear. However, they did suggest that perhaps ITC Kabel was an influence in the design of the letter-form.

The problem in Kabel is in the diagonal's of the "K", the center arm of the "E" and the "Y". But the diagonal slant at the end of each arm of the "E" and the base of the "L's" is a great match. It could be that I didn't get the photo taken straight enough. But, I'll try to keep an eye out for something more similar than the Kabel.

Fake it till you make it.

Here is another great page from Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist:

Have you ever heard of dramaturgy? It's a fancy term for something William Shakespeare spelled out in his play As You Like It about 400 years ago;

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.

Another way to say this? Fake it till you make it.
I love this phrase. There are two ways to read it:
     1. Pretend to be something you're not until you are—
         fake it until you're successful, until everybody sees
         the way you want them to; or
     2. Pretend to be making something until you actually make something

I love both readings—you have to dress for the job you want, not the job you have, and you have to start doing the work you want to be doing.

I also love the book Just Kids by the musician Patti Smith. It's a story about how two friends who wanted to be artists moved to New York. You know how they learned to be artists?

"You start out
as a phony and
become real."
–Glenn O'Brien

Greg's Truck and Auto

Recently, my project 2 design flopped as the company that I was designing a wordmark for is named "Timpone's". It is an Italian cuisine restaurant in Urbana on the University campus. In working on my design, one of my concepts ended up appearing as "Limpone's" or aka Limp one's. So, that kinda blew it for me. I can't seem to look at the word in any way now without seeing it incorrectly.

I was driving this weekend and saw Greg's Truck and Auto and noticed how awful the design is. It's just an all centered serif word mark / logo. I pulled in and grabbed this shot of it and I plan to rework this for my project two word mark. I met the owner as he was curious why I was taking a picture of his sign. I explained that I am a graphic design student at Parkland College and working on a project to rework a logo / word mark. I told him I would bring my work back to him and if he likes it, he will be able to use it.  He looked like he thought that was a pretty great opportunity for him.

I wondered what font was being used already. I think it would look better as a sans serif word mark. It could be much sportier and auto like. I took the image to whatfontis.com and got the following result.

I think this is about as accurate as it can get. The letter-forms were a nearly perfect match.