alphabet city press

7 November 20137 November 2013

Tenterfield saddler

My Melbourne Cup picks came in first and third, so while my token flutter has barely netted me enough profit for a celebratory drink, let alone a night on the town, I am still chuffed about winning. I could perhaps celebrate with a rousing rendition of The Tenterfield Saddler, a song made famous in the 1980s by Peter Allen, who wrote the ballad about his grandfather George Woolnough. There have been five Tenterfield saddlers since 1870. George Woolnough was the third, and plied his trade from 1908 until his retirement in 1960. The current saddler, Trevor Gibson, works from the workshop that, apart from general repairs, is still in its original condition, complete with this gold-painted and weathered cedar shingle.

4 November 20134 November 2013

Saddle and harness

Tomorrow is the first Tuesday in November, which makes it Melbourne Cup Day, one of the most significant days in the Australian calendar. The Melbourne Cup, held at Flemington Racecourse, is a 3200 metre thoroughbred horse race. It’s a public holiday in metropolitan Melbourne, and around the country pretty much everyone stops to watch the race on tv, glass of champagne in one hand, betting slips in the other. One year I got my American friend involved. I sent him the form guide, he picked the horse, I placed the bet, and to my great astonishment the horse won! Kneipp’s Saddle and Harness Emporium, in Tenterfield, certainly won’t be supplying any gear this year. In the late 1800s Frederick Kneipp offered ‘a new improved saddle’, but all that’s left of the building, after it was destroyed by fire in 2011, is this burnt and blistered facade.

1 November 20131 November 2013

Best coffee

I am seriously uninspired this morning. I have design work to do, an artist’s book to fine tune before I go ahead with the edition, plus half a dozen coptic notebooks to stitch. It’s far more tempting to sit outside in the garden, catch a few rays and read a chapter of my library book. Perhaps I need coffee from the Wallabadah General Store.

29 October 201329 October 2013

Beehive

It’s bushfire season, and there was a particularly severe few days last week when the air was thick with smoke for hundred of kilometres from the fires to the north, south and west of Sydney. I was about 300 kilometres north, in Taree, when I saw this richly lit facade. The building is painted a kind of pale yellowy off-white — the rich honey colour has nothing to do with the name of the building, but comes from the late afternoon sun filtered through smoke haze. A couple of days later, on my return home, I noticed an unusual amount of bee activity under my studio window, and discovered hundreds of bees attempting to build a hive. Coincidence or not, they had to be moved!

26 October 20136 October 2013

Crossing

The acid yellow of the crossing sign was luminous against the perfect vignette of the cloudless blue sky. As I paused to admire the contrast of colours I heard the unmistakable thrum of a plane preparing to land. Those of us who live in the inner west under the flight path are almost immune to the sound of aircraft, but I could tell that this one was close. I hardly think the crossing sign was intended for planes, but it was so low at this point it could have been.

23 October 20136 October 2013

Fonthead

Fonthead was founded in 1994 by Ethan and Lisa Dunham. I first came across their range of fonts when I was looking for something quirky and a bit different for a series of children’s joke books I was designing. Fonthead’s selection of free fonts were a cut above the rest, and I used a combination of Good Dog (perhaps their best known typeface) and Font Heads. Their catalogue has grown considerably since then and includes such typefaces as Corn Dog, Drawzing, Bad Dog, Circus Dog, and Click Bits and Info Bits — an impressive collection of 980 arrows and icons.

20 October 20135 October 2013

Butcher

This typeface has such an air of familiarity about it that I was certain I could identify it quickly and accurately. This familiarity, I suppose, is because it looks like Clarendon, even though it isn’t quite: Clarendon has a distinctive upturn on the leg of the uppercase R which is not present here. I looked up Beton, Egyptian Bold, Superba, Cheltenham, New Century Schoolbook and anything else I could think of that might provide the answer to my quest. I compared Linotype to Bitstream. I looked through old type catalogues. I asked around. Then in the end I decided that the signwriter had drawn his own Clarendon-like letters, and that I could relax.

17 October 20136 October 2013

Central Park

Central Park — in Sydney, not New York — is the urban redevelopment of the old Kent Brewery site in Chippendale. When the hoardings first went up along Broadway I was not impressed. The typography of the logo combines the lowercase l with the uppercase P, and, imho, it tries too hard to be clever and fails in the attempt. I was also unimpressed that, yet again, they couldn’t think up a name of their own. However, the site is proving to be quite interesting. There has been some outstanding public sculpture on show, and when I walked by this week I had a great underneath view of this partially constructed suspended platform.

14 October 20135 October 2013

Top 10 fonts

My attention was drawn recently to an article in The Guardian, in which Domenic Lippa of Pentagram listed his ten favourite fonts: Akzidenz Grotesk, New Baskerville, DIN 1451, Franklin Gothic, HTF Didot, Gotham, Knockout, Gill Shadow, Rockwell and Sabon. What a task to choose only ten! It made me think about my favourites, and also how they change over time — there are fonts I once used on a regular basis but have barely looked at these last couple of years. I would have to agree with Lippa that Akzidenz Grotesk is ‘probably the best typeface ever designed’, and despite its current ubiquitousness I would also include Gotham on my list. And perhaps Archer, which is the type I am, according to Pentagram’s ‘what type are you?’ game.

11 October 20135 October 2013

Gnomes

This is one of the more surprising installations I have come across. Drive along Australia’s number one highway (no less!) through Cobargo and there it is, on the western side of the road: a patch of sandy, weed-ridden vacant land, made home to a collection of garden gnomes. Great care has obviously been taken with the sign that stakes their claim. You can still see traces of the pencil guide lines and it is constructed well enough to withstand the blustery wet weather of the day I first saw them.