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Archive for category: Type I Saw Today

Type samples from the real world

   (2005.10.30)
White door has hand-painted numeral 3 and the scratched-out words ‘Why not fuck for money?’
   (2005.10.30)

Who the hell puts Perpetua Italic together with something off a Windows 95 installation (Lucida Sans Italic)?

Sign shows an illustration of a chef and Loblaws Kitchen Presents Prepared Entrées in Perpetua Italic and Lucida Sans Italic
   (2005.10.25)

It looks like a simulated image in a commercial for a television set, but it really is that orange and green.

Sign on green Harry Rosen store reads ‘Fall’s Arrived’ in orange Rockwell type
   (2005.10.21)

Not the even-more-fabulous sign on Richmond St., as yet unphotographed.

Window display case shows an inset poster reading ‘Flowers, a GIft for any Occasion!’ and live vines. The case window reads Tidy’s Flowers in hand-drawn type
   (2005.10.16)

I can superexclusively document (and you can’t) that warning labels in a brand-new $750,000 ladder truck are typeset in Arial (also, confusingly, Helvetica and Futura).

Two warning labels are typeset in Arial with Helvetica headlines, with a third set entirely in Futura

Tactile signage in ladder truck

Additionally, this warning sign (yes, it really is located above an A[(]E[)]RIAL INLET!) is somehow typeset in three-dimensional, tactile Avant Garde Gothic and Helvetica Condensed, as though some ill-defined category of blind firefighter were expected to read it at a three-alarm blaze.

Sign in raised type reads WARNING in Avant Garde Gothic, with a full paragraph of warnings about death or serious injury in Helvetica Condensed
   (2005.10.13)

Groups that help natives and homeless and underhoused people in this town sure have lousy type on their vehicles.

Arial is, as ever, a favourite:

Van is labeled NA ME RES OUTREACH SERVICES in Arial (with phone number in Helvetica Condensed)

Na Me Res is not, in fact, a phrase in an aboriginal language of any kind. It’s an initialism of sorts derived from Native Men’s Residence. (I confirmed that fact.) The phrase just sounds Cree or whatever. (Do you have a mental image of an identifiable Indian male voice breathily pronouncing those syllables?)

As such, it is like a white person wearing a headdress. Or is it like naming a Chinese fast-food chain Ho Lee Chow? I suppose it is untenable to level any kind of criticism at Na Me Res, since a native group is making fun of its own people rather than whites making fun of natives. I guess they get a pass because, self-evidently, a minority cannot stereotype itself.

Arial is also popular on the giant Suburban driven around town by another agency, Anishnawbe Health Services:

Lettering on flank of vehicle reads STREET PATROL in Arial

But if you look elsewhere on that vehicle, you find Novarese Italic, which is in fact Italian:

Dual ambulance doors of Suburban read Anishnawbe Health Toronto in Novarese Italic

But of course Novarese (can you pronounce it?) looks like eagle feathers or some such nonsense, so it makes sense in an “aboriginal” context.

This isn’t Cherokee or Inuktitut; you’re stuck using the white man’s orthography. I know that causes offense, but I want you to show better taste anyway.

   (2005.10.07)

Literally.

Metal control panel is labeled UNIPRESS and has LEAVE OFF AT ALL TIMES written in marker. Manufacturer’s brass-coloured plate reads THE UNIPRESS CO., INC. MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA USA and lists many patent numbers
Orange-coloured metal hinged door has ELECTRIC SCHEMATIC and AIR SCHEMATIC diagrams on its inside. Inside the box above it sit a power plug and some cylinders
   (2005.10.04)

I live in the hood and I don’t know how to pronounce it. (Care? Car? Cur? Probably care.)

Sign reads Cherrynook Gardens 13 Kerr Road in hand-drawn blackletter
   (2005.10.04)

(Q.V.)

Green recycling bin is labeled ‘Yard Waste Only No Grass’ in the font known as Hobo

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