11/30/2012

An ode to Letraset

If you worked with graphic design, architecture or layout back in ye olde analog days, when we kept dinosaurs for pets, and only had one TV channel (in Denmark!) - you will  remember Letraset.






























You will have spent hours rubbing away with the stick or the pencil, or you will have been shading architectural drawings by the yard, with the tiny little dots or lines, till your eyes hurt!
And deep in yourself, you will remember the grinding frustration of having miscounted the 'f's, or
whatever, on your sheet, trying to fix it somehow, just before some project had to be handed in to
the printshop. Grrr.

Then everybody got themselves a Mac or a PC, and bye bye to Letraset - hello to Adobe.

But of course, Letraset was also really mmmmmm. For anyone in love with typeface, that is.
Oooh, those crisp sheets of perfection. The blackness of the black. And the smooth silkiness of the
surface of the applied lettering (unless you had f***ed it up, and it was all wrinkly).

My friend and former colleague, Christine Cato, posted this idea on Facebook the other day.

The thing is, nobody could bring themselves to actually throw the Letraset away (it was just madly
expensive, remember?), so in forgotten drawers of design companies and architectural firms all over
the world, it lingers somewhere. Under some old pile of something.

Christine found it and she made this beautiful advent candle! Isn't it pretty?

Photo: Christine Cato



























Of course I went to my own bottom drawer, and I actually found a few old dusty sheets - now you
go look for yourself! Unfortunately I found very few numerals, but I am contemplating some kind of 1+2+3+4 sundays-in-advent-type candle. I will post it, if I manage not to make a total mess of it.

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