Print magazine nameplate, 1955–1960

Date:2015-08-28 05:34:22| Printing|Browse: 129|Source: Fonts in Use|Author: Florian Hardwig

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IntroductionSource: http://www.printmag.com.Print. License: All Rights Reserv

Print IV:3 (1946), featuring a chromatic rendering of Chisel paired with Gill Sans. Label by William G. Meek.

Chisel, a design by Robert Harling, was issued by Stephenson Blake in 1939. It made a first appearance at Print in 1946 and is also used on the cover of issue VIII:5 (1954), see below. The preceding issue is one of a few that show a handlettered flared Roman. Its inline decoration is quite similar to the one in Chisel. Paul Shaw:

With Print IX:5 (1955), Leo Lionni became the co-editor of the magazine. […] For the first time, the covers sported a consistent nameplate. They were set in Chisel, an inline version of a 19th-century Latin typeface […] Beginning in 1960 several of the guest art directors began to challenge the use of Chisel for the nameplate. Some, like Designers 3 (Jack Selden, Mel Harris and Jack Golden) for Print XIV:2 and Robert M. Jones (art director at RCA Victor Records and proprietor of the Glad Hand Press) for Print XIV:3, used Chisel Wide [released in 1956, not available in digital form]. But others looked further afield to such typefaces as Futura (Print XIV:1) and Microgramma Bold Extended (Print XIV:4). With Print XIV:6, the final issue of 1960, Chisel was replaced by handlettering. […]

Chisel was an old-fashioned typeface when it was released in 1939 and it must have looked even mustier in comparison to Univers, Neue Haas Grotesk (later Helvetica) and Folio, the trio of new sans serif typefaces released by European foundries in 1957 that were slowly making their way to the United States.

Print VIII:4 (1954). Cover from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. This handlettered nameplate also appears on other issues of volume VIII, incl. 1 and 6.