CHECK out ol’ Wal (in the middle with the tusks). He is listening to a story about himself. The story is told by Philip Rose and a couple of kids are gathered for occasion. I show this cover because I like the lettering of the title. It reminds me a bit of the bubble-style in graffiti. Nice detail is the seagull resting on the last L. Picton Publishing brought out Tales of Old Wal in 1975.

ED Ruscha is fond of words. The versatile artist likes them so much, words appear in his paintings throughout his career. Most of the time he uses an existing type, but between 1966 and 1969 Ruscha makes up his own form. The results are the ‘liquid words’ paintings. The first one has the title ‘Annie, Poured from Maple Syrup’. Check out more paintings of Ruscha here.  They are all there, from the early works from 1958 till the late ones in 1992. Although some are missing.

THE modern Japanese writing system is pretty complicated. It uses three scripts: Kanji and two syllabaries called Kana. The first one uses ideograms from Chinese characters. Kana consists of Hiragana, used for native Japanese words, and Katakana, used for foreign borrowings. Katakana are characterized by short, straight strokes and are the simplest of the Japanese scripts, and I believe the set you see on this page is Katakana. Keinosuke Sato and Shoyu Ohmachi designed this particular font.

TO promote a font you don't need a model. The font has to sell itself. But if the advertisement lacks a human touch, it’s always possible to compose a figure out of the letters. The Monotype Corporation Limited did it with the use of their ‘Monotype Century Schoolbook Composition’. The result is some kind of Mesopotamian warrior with a beard made from the letter C.

WHEN the most hated person in the history of mankind dies, the typesetter can reach for the lead type that weighs a kilo apiece. The headline fills out nicely. That is, off course, because of the compact last name of Adolf in combination with the word Dead. The Stars and Stripes was the newspaper for GI’s. The headline with the underlines reads like some beatnik poem: Hitler Dead / Fuehrer Fell at CP / German Radio Says / Doenitz at Helm / Vows War Will Continue /

JAMES Stewart played the leading part in the Hitchcock movie Rear Window. So these names you see morphed into each other during the opening credits of the movie. Rear Window fades, James Stewart appears. The letters become one big monogram. Next are Grace Kelly and Thelma Ritter. Rear Window is considered as one of Hitchcock’s best pictures.

FROM time to time, it’s good to help your books out of their dust jackets. Just to see what’s underneath. Judging the books below, it’s worth giving dust a chance. Without ISBNs, blurbs, the name of the publisher and so on, these covers are linen deserts with typographic oases.

RED and white mastheads on the top of a cover must sell magazines.  It looks almost like a formula. White sans serif typeface + red box = pleasing masthead. Life and Picture Post used it since the late thirties. After World War II more magazines, like Ebony, started using the formula. Even the masthead of The Face is eighties variant of the style. When you see all the mastheads under each other, they form a sort of Beatnik poem.

NOVELIST J.D Salinger has some strong principles on the cover designs of his book. He doesn’t allow the use of pictures or quotations from reviews of his work. Also blurbs are forbidden. Even the remotest foreign publication of his books has to follow these rules. As a result the covers of his books are often minimal in design, like the 1973 Penguin cover of Franny and Zooey. The back and the front are the same. Only the price and ISBN number are printed in the lower corners. The cover of a 1991 version of the book Nine Stories. His opinion on design is not the only peculiar habit of the author. In 1965 Salinger, best known for his book ‘Catcher in the Rye’, published his last story. From then on he keeps his creations to himself. In a rare interview with The New York Times, he explained: ‘There is a marvelous peace in not publishing.… I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.’ .........................................

ONE of these logotypes is used for an actual zoo. It’s not the first. This logo belonged to Zoo Productions, a German company that worked in the film and sound industry. Designer Alan Mason made the snake Z and eagle and tiger O in 1987. The other logotype is from Tobe Zoological Park in Japan. The Tokyo based GK Graphic made the broad design plan for the zoo in 1988. Check out this page on their website to see a banksy-esque signage of chimp that hanged somewhere in the park.