Typophile - (x) house & garden - Pistilli Roman {Marc Simonson} - Comments

Mark Simonson — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 09:45:36 -0800

Stephen Coles — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 08:50:58 -0800

Can you show it to us, Mark?

Mark Simonson — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 07:28:30 -0800

I've always thought those dividers were a nice touch.

There's one photo in there that gets to me now. It's the one
for "T" which is from the giant letters for The Big Kitchen
which used to be at the top of one of the WTC towers. It
was designed by Milton Glaser and I always thought it was a
neat thing. I'm sure it was long gone by the time of the
attacks, but seeing it now reminds me of everthing thing
that's happened since. You never know what you'll find in a
type specimen book.

smith — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 06:06:32 -0800

The designer was indeed James Hellmuth. He did 99% of the design work for Phil's Photo. Very talanted guy. I've been out of touch with him for years.

By the way the catalog ,"Homage", is the first instance I can recall that has a "found typography" or what ever you want to call it. Photos of type in everyday use separate each alphabetical section.

Mark Simonson — Mon, 24 Nov 2003 17:44:07 -0800

I totally missed that. He's just listed as the designer in the
book itself so it's hard to say from that, but, no doubt, the
credit given on their site is correct.

bowfinpw — Mon, 24 Nov 2003 16:36:55 -0800

The credit (James Helmuth) is on the image Ralph posted (assuming that's the same lettering on your copy), isn't it?

Mark Simonson — Mon, 24 Nov 2003 15:17:55 -0800

Who did that lettering? There's no credit that I can find in the book.

I just realized I've been calling mine a "three-ring binder," but it's actually got seven. I guess I have the "slightly improved design."

smith — Mon, 24 Nov 2003 14:42:26 -0800

All of our typositor reels found their way to the dumpster around mid 1995. Typositors are long gone too.

On a brighter note I do have about 20 "Homage to the Alphabet" 3 ring binders and a "slightly improved design" 7 ring binders in my personal stash.

I keep thinking I'd like to get someone to complete a full alphabet of the script typeface design on the cover of the binder version of "Homage".
http://www.philsfonts.com/tist_main052103.html

Mark Simonson — Mon, 24 Nov 2003 12:37:33 -0800

Yeah, I found that site a while back, too. Looks like they
have all of them.

I actually have a dozen old Typositor reels with 60 or so
faces on them. They used to belong to the University of
Minnesota's Journalism School. I grabbed them when they
were going to be thrown out. No Typositor, though.

I wanted very badly for a while to have a Typositor in-house
when I was a magazine art director early in my career, but
they were not cheap and we could never justify the cost.

Ignacio — Mon, 24 Nov 2003 12:26:05 -0800

Yes Mark, you have a collector's item for sure.

I sent Phil's Fonts an e-mail and told me that they sold the last one about 3 years ago,
thanksTamie for the clue though, and yes, that would have been the perfect gift.

BTW Grant, now that you are close, thank you very much for that link-thread on original cartoon titles,
lovely things there.

bowfinpw — Mon, 24 Nov 2003 10:42:03 -0800

Mark,
I just found a site ( Incipit) that says they have a photocomposition (film type) library of 3,500 faces, including the 4 Pistilli faces. A quick glance at their type catalog listing shows a lot of the Phil's Photo typefaces alive and well in that collection. Makes you wish you had your own Typositor doesn't it?

Mark Simonson — Sun, 23 Nov 2003 19:15:27 -0800

I don't know much about it, but I don't think it's from any
earlier than the late 1960s. I can tell you that it was a VGC
font designed by John Pistilli and that it came in three basic
weights--normal, bold, and black. The weights appear to
refer mainly to the thickness of the hairlines, sort of like
optical scaling. There were two other styles--Open No. 1
and Open No. 2--which only differed in stroke thickness.

anonymous — Sun, 23 Nov 2003 14:35:16 -0800

Thanks to all, especially to Mark for his keen eye.

Looks like the font will keep on vexing me since it's not digitised! At least I now know what it is; the original must go back a fair way. Thanks again for your help.

tamye — Fri, 21 Nov 2003 19:36:19 -0800

The Phil's Photo "Homage to the Alphabet" is indeed a treasure. The first edition in a 3-ring binder is beautiful, and is definitely a collector's item. When I still worked at Phil's a couple of years go, they had a small stash left of the first edition. If I recall correctly, they were selling for around $150 each, and there may be a few copies left. Yes, it's more than the later paperback editions you can find second-hand, but the original is just wonderful. I highly recommend it as a Christmas gift (to yourself).

www.philsfonts.com

And no, I am no longer affiliated with Phil's Fonts in any way, I just want everyone to have the joy of owning this book if possible.

bowfinpw — Fri, 21 Nov 2003 17:58:35 -0800

Thank you too, Mike. I appreciate it.

(x) house & garden - Pistilli Roman {Marc Simonson}

anonymous — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 18:07:34 -0800

Hi all,

Here's a font that's been vexing me for ages. I only have a scan from a fax copy and want to improve it somewhat.

Looks like a form of Bodoni or Century 725 Black from the Corel disk... but the killer is the ampersand (the &).

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Typophile - &#40;x&#41; house &amp; garden - Pistilli Roman {Marc Simonson} - Comments

(x) house & garden - Pistilli Roman {Marc Simonson}

Typophile - (x) house & garden - Pistilli Roman {Marc Simonson} - Comments