PHOTO-LETTERING: 1969 ALPHABET YEARBOOK
Alphabet Directions Number Ten
Photo-Lettering, Inc.
[Photo-Lettering, Inc.]: PHOTO-LETTERING: 1969 ALPHABET YEARBOOK. New York: Photo-Lettering, Inc., 1969. Original edition [Alphabet Directions Number Ten]. Slim quarto. Stapled thick printed wrappers. 128 pp. Photocomposition samples presented via elaborate graphic design. Wrappers sunned at spine edge and faintly shelfworn. Small former owner signature to first page, otherwise interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. A very good or better copy.
9 x 12 softcover book with 128 pages of alphabets including many novelty faces. The revival of Art Nouveau and Art Deco types seems to have been in full swing. “Selling type users on certain styles of photo type meant that Photo-Lettering Inc. contrived to make typographic fashions. A big one-a conceit that was big in the early 1970s-was nostalgia, even for things, places, and times that one did not actually live through.” —Steven Heller
Type includes Calendar, Montgomery Pousse Café, Caruso Roxanna, Theodore Fantasia, West Freak-out, Williamson Skidoo, Chwast Art Tone Black Bottom, Taylor Farmhand, Milt Glaser Baby Teeth, Capricorn Wide, West Kashmir, Planet, Pacella Appomatox, Pacella Monitor, Dawnette, Carlyle, Trocadero, Bracelet, Tangier, Aesthetic and many many more.
From Luc Devroye, McGill University on Extinct 20th Century Foundries: "New York based photocomposition, lettering and digital type business active from 1936-1997, cofounded by Harold Horman and Edward Rondthaler in 1936 . . . . It was one of the earliest and most successful type houses to utilize photo technology in the production of commercial typography and lettering."
“Founded in 1936, Photo-Lettering was one of the earliest and most successful type houses that utilized photographic methods to produce commercial lettering and typography. In the go-go golden age of Madison Avenue advertising, Photo-Lettering’s proprietary workflow and vast library provided significant technological and stylistic advantages over its competitors. From World War II propaganda posters to iconic rock album covers and blockbuster movie logos, Photo-Lettering’s body of work represents a quintessential visual history of twentieth-century American advertising and design. Photo-Lettering eventually closed its doors in the mid-90s, failing to keep up with the digital publishing revolution and leaving some of the most illustrative display typography to gather dust and slowly decompose. The company’s ubiquitous colorful case-bound catalogs and specimen books, however, survived and became a key part of our (and many other graphic designers’) swipe file/reference library.
“PLINC, as it was affectionately known to art directors, was a mainstay of the advertising and design industry in New York City from 1936 to 1997. In the days before facsimile, flatbed scanners and email, copper borne telephone instructions buzzed beneath the streets while couriers beat a well-worn path between Madison Avenue advertising agencies and Photo-Lettering’s Murray Hill facility.
“Photo-Lettering is best known by today’s graphic designers for its ubiquitous type catalogs. Cast off at the beginning of the digital revolution as obsolete relics, designers soon began to see the books as an oasis of lettering, typographic and design influence.
“Sixty years worth of brilliantly-designed marketing collateral combined with work submitted from A-list designers and pop artists formed a lithophotographic legacy that would keep any modern-day reference blogger’s intern busy for years. While each combination of alphabet styles, colors and shapes may evoke a certain time period in PLINC’s illustrious history, these visual lessons are relevant in any era.” — House Industries [PLC2018]