Funny how life works, after I posted Paul Rand’s business card I found this similarly minimal letterhead belonging to another genius.

Letterheady is a blog of old letterhead examples, so if you’ve ever wondered what Adolf Hitler’s letterhead looked like, wonder no more:

…let’s hope he was writing with good news. In the interests of fairness here’s Winston Churchill’s:

…and to complete the Paul Rand circle of logic, here’s an old IBM one:

…even if I do prefer Clive Sinclair’s:

An interesting site and the collection is growing. Remember, you spell stationery with an e when you mean envelopes.

Have you ever wondered what a bird’s favourite font is? Well, that’s the sort of issue my mind turns to on a Friday afternoon. Check out Type Nesting, a collection of homely nests inside various letters of the signage alphabet.

Apparently they prefer the letter R…

The image above is of Letterland which is my earliest memory of the alphabet, making characters out of each letter while learning to read. Flash forward 30 years and we’re still doing it, a favourite pastime of graphic designers is to dream up new alphabets and fonts. There are lots of really imaginative interpretations of the 26 letters of our alphabet out there so I thought I’d start collecting a few of my favourite A to Zs in one place. Some are more legible than others, but they’re all a bit of fun and go to show type can be a living analogue thing too.

I think this will become an ever-growing post as I find more of these. If you’ve found any, please post them in the comments…

Type the Sky by Lisa Rienermann, who tends to walk into lamp posts a lot.

Booksetting by Amandine Alessandra who hasn’t bought an Amazon Kindle yet.

Tiepography by Ed Nacional, who really needs some new shirts.

Handy by Public who are good at charades.

Heldentica by Autobahn who seem a bit wasteful.

Google Maps Typography by Rhett Dashwood who ironically suffers from vertigo.

Folded by Brian Jaramillo who has a lot of time on his hands.

Apple Alphabet by Ana Benaroya who’s getting her 5-a-day.

Ideographic Chairs by Amandine Alessandra again, who sleeps standing up.

Value Pack by Robert J Bolesta who buys one and gets one free.

Alphabet Truck by Eric Tabuchi who isn’t great at overtaking.

Backbreaker by Kalle Mattsson who makes friends easily.

Brød & Korn by Commando Group who have nice buns.

Here are more, as I find them…

Lego Font by Handmade Font who can never find the windscreen brick.

Lazer Dog by Oscar and Ewan who are quick but not brown.

Fire-Poi Typography by Nir Tober who has run away to join the circus.

East End Shopfronts by Eine who is a repeat offender.

Beard Alphabet by Tim Yarzhombeck who saves a lot on razor blades.

Bits by Paul Elliman who needs to declutter the house.

Lovely Ladies by Malika Favre of Airside who thinks boys smell.

Folded Paper Typeface by Daniella Spinat who makes great paper planes.

Interior by Andrew Byrom who secretly shops at Ikea.

Fire in the hole by Oliver Munday who had some childhood issues.

Lightbulbs by Adam Slowik who isn’t worried about his carbon footprint.

Pantone Typeface by Marc Alcock who likes Cool Gray 6.

Eatphabet by Alex Kapranos who has his clothes specially made.

Slotervaart Alphabet by Studio GloriusVandeVen who didn’t get planning permission.

Hirsutura by Craig Ward who has a blocked plughole.

Miss Alphabet by Sheriff who hope for world peace.

Zipper by Tony DiSpigna who never flies low.

Skullphabet by Skull-A-Day, who REALLY like skulls.

Human Alphabet by Monica Alisse, who is good at helping planes to land.

Typeface in Skin by Thijs Verbeek, who suffer for their art.

In the words of Ian and Alex who run The Art of the Title Sequence website: “Remember when your heart sank just a little when you realized the Pink Panther movie wasn’t a cartoon?” Check out their site for examples of great typographic, illustrative and imaginatively composed film and television title sequences. You can watch them in good quality too and then stick around to discuss in a suitably highbrow fashion…

In the meantime here are some of my favourites from the site…

…the obligatory Hitchcock, this time it’s Vertigo:

The haunting typographic treat which is Alien:

Read the rest of this entry…

I’d noticed a few lovely classic film title screens cropping up on Ffffound! in recent weeks, then all of a sudden I stumble across this website, an archive of great (and not so great) film title screens lovingly compiled over a number of years by Steven Hill.

I could spend hours looking through these, the old ones are particularly lovely. Reminds me of watching classic afternoon films staying at my Nan’s house when I was little. No, we didn’t watch Battle Royale!

Thanks to Sean for the link…

Remember when you used to draw your logos with a pencil? Check out Bob Truby’s Brand Name Pencils if these days you’re more familiar with a mouse or Wacom pen.