Rush Job

Rush Job

Note the expanded (double) spacing, Cara Evangelista.

via Matt McIrvin, who also added:

The Declaration of Independence was not drafted on July 4, 1776; the final wording was settled on a couple of days earlier. Nor was the calligraphic version you can see in the National Archives signed that day; the famous "Signing of the Declaration of Independence" happened in August.

What actually happened on July 4, 1776? The Continental Congress ratified it, then they typeset this, the printed version of the Declaration. So that's the date given to the thing.

Originally shared by Andrew Reid

Fourth of July randomness, with fonts!

So apparently in 1962, JFK picked out the font for the marking on Air Force One personally, picking one that resembled the early printed versions of the Declaration of Independence.

The version in question, the first widely-distributed version of the declaration, is the "Dunlap Broadside", put together by John Dunlap, whose printing shop was near the state house (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia. The job being a rush job, he of course used the type that was at hand. The colonies not being very industrialized, the headline font was evidently a local copy derived from a product of the Caslon foundry, a British type company.

The linked article is very good, not only on the typography, but also on the historical contingency of it all -- the iconic character of the thing has mostly to do with its social importance, rather than any particular virtues of the font or the printing job.
https://fontsinuse.com/uses/1666/the-dunlap-broadside

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Entremet

Entremet Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh "“Like most people in the US, I grew up knowing the words to this carol and even (shudder) singing them occasionally (singing is not a strong point of mine), but never really thought about what they meant, how the carol originated, or what birds were involved”, says Dr Rasmussen in email. So she decided to figure it out. Dr Rasmussen, who’s tied for third for the most bird discoveries in the world, is probably also the world’s foremost avian sleuth, due to her meticulous detective work a few years ago that uncovered the many ornithological thefts and records frauds in museums that were committed by eminent British ornithologist, Richard Meinertzhagen. But who would ever have thought that an old Christmas carol might also hold an avian mystery? “After all, it’s just a Christmas carol!” Dr Rasmussen points out." https://medium.com/@GrrlScientist/meet-the-real-birds-of-the-twelve-days-of-christmas-fame-grrlscientist-5a8bc09350c9
Read more

Flushbunkingly Gloriumptious

Flushbunkingly Gloriumptious Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh "Renowned children's author and occasional spy, Roald Dahl spent the last years of his life in a home located in the small English village of Great Missenden, and now his beloved village is home to an attractive museum devoted to his life and works.  [...] Today the museum holds all of Dahl's original manuscripts, as well as his "Idea Books" where he would jot down his nascent creations. In addition to celebrating his writing career, there are also displays covering his service in the RAF. However, the crown jewel of the museum is the recreation of Dahl's purpose built "Writing Hut," complete with the arm chair he had customized to write in." http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-roald-dahl-museum
Read more

Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh

Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh So Labradors tend to overeat. Now it has been traced to genetic differences. "Dr Eleanor Raffan, a veterinary surgeon and geneticist who studies how genes influence metabolism at the Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge recently published a study that examines the genetics that underlie food motivation and obesity in Labrador retrievers. [...] When Dr Raffan and her team carefully examined this POMC gene variant, they found that a small 14-basepair section a little more than halfway down the gene’s length was missing. This deletion creates a frameshift mutation that results in the production of an abnormal protein where the last half is scrambled into a blob of nonsense [...]. Normally, the POMC is translated into the POMC pro-peptide, which is cleaved at precise sites to give rise to number of smaller peptides, including the appetite suppressing neuropeptides, ß-MSH & ß-endorphin, but the abnormal POMC pro-peptide do...
Read more