Metal cuts of images and icons were sold through type shops and foundries during the hot type era. Printers would buy them by the gross to use in printed advertisements mostly. Looking through the cuts catalogs is now a historical picture waiting to be assembled. The corporate and business logos and trademarks mixed in with quotidian signs and symbols speaks volumes about what was media-important in American life during the ’40s and ’50s when the images below were available.
To celebrate the season of consumptive buying and giving, here are a few of the packed pages, including some religious goodies, from the Sterling Type Foundry in Charlotte, Michigan, as my gift to you. (See how many have not changed much, or have been recently brought back from oblivion.)
The Best Designs From New York City, 2014Want to get inspired? Want to see the very best work from the design epicenter of the United States? In this download from Print’s Regional Design Annual—the design industry’s most prestigious competition—brand guru and artist Debbie Millman names the 60 best designs from NYC in 2014.