What do some designers do for fun? You know, those activities that are unrelated to the daily list of client requests and work related emails? They design more stuff — and not just any stuff, they design stuff for designers.
Aside from being a purely creative outlet devoid of typical restrictions (such as clients), one of the goals for anything produced under the Ligature, Loop & Stem moniker is that it educates as well as inspires. This piece scratched an itch for us in wanting to have a quick reference for letterform characteristics — in essence, so we can all speak the same language when talking about type.
Although we’d seen similar diagrams in books, we wanted something that felt more modern. To that end, we purposefully selected two type families which balanced that desire while keeping one foot in the past, reflecting the historical content of the piece’s subject matter.
But not all was rosy and perfect in Hobby Land:
There were two challenges we faced during production: extremely tight registration is difficult to achieve with letterpress due to factors such as humidity in the pressroom and in the paper stock itself, along with stretching of the paper as it travels through the press. Also, thin hairlines are difficult to reproduce using polymer plates as the brushes that clean the plates during the platemaking process can easily distort or brush them away entirely.
In the end, it looks like both issues were addressed and solved to their (and our) satisfaction for this poster is gorgeous enough to be completely sold out.
Editor of FPO and co-founder of UnderConsideration LLC.
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FPO (For Print Only), is a division of UnderConsideration, celebrating the reality that print is not dead by showcasing the most compelling printed projects.
FPO uses Fonts.com to render Siseriff and Avenir Next.
FPO is run with Six Apart’s MovableType
All comments, ideas and thoughts on FPO are property of their authors; reproduction without the author’s or FPO’s permission is strictly prohibited
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UnderConsideration is a graphic design firm generating its own projects, initiatives, and content while taking on limited client work. Run by Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit in Bloomington, IN. More…
blogs we publish
Brand New / Displaying opinions and focusing solely on corporate and brand identity work.
Art of the Menu / Cataloguing the underrated creativity of menus from around the world.
Quipsologies / Chronicling the most curious, creative, and notable projects, stories, and events of the graphic design industry on a daily basis.
products we sell
Flaunt: Designing effective, compelling and memorable portfolios of creative work.
Brand New Conference videos / Individual, downloadable videos of every presentation since 2010.
Prints / A variety of posters, the majority from our AIforGA series.
Other / Various one-off products.
events we organize
Brand New Conference / A two-day event on corporate and brand identity with some of today's most active and influential practitioners from around the world.
Brand Nieuwe Conference / Ditto but in Amsterdam.
Austin Initiative for Graphic Awesomeness / A speaker series in Austin, TX, featuring some of the graphic design industry's most awesome people.
also
Favorite Things we've Made / In our capacity as graphic designers.
Projects we've Concluded / Long- and short-lived efforts.
UCllc News / Updates on what's going at the corporate level of UnderConsideration.
Related entries
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National Parks Map
eBoy Poster
“Love Your Mother” Print