Introducing a new “occasional” Daily Heller series devoted to type, lettering and imagery in the public domain—found or orphaned graphic material that has no particular provenance, lives homeless on the street yet has a certain je ne sais quoi that suggests skill, craft and intelligence were responsible for its being. The first is “clink!” a sign for, well, you name it: a soft drink, perhaps; or a hip new bar; or something even more arcane, like an inmate’s lounge in a minimum security prison?
Whatever, the letters are nicely proportioned and satisfyingly dimensional. However, the red dot above the ‘i’ provides the spot of class. I also admire the designer for not doing the same with the exclamation point!
So, what’s the point? The “Public Domain” series examines how the suggestively untutored typography all around us can be pretty appealing until (or maybe in spite of when) we look closely at the letters, as we’ve done below, when the flaws become vivid to the naked eye.
