The Bell Tolls for the Bell Logo

Written by Dan Reynolds on November 26, 2004

Occasionally on Typophile, someone will ask whether it’s possible for blackletter to be saved/revived. The usual answer is “possibly, but probably not.” “Why not?” many posters ponder. Well, fraktur fans, here is one example.

Few Typographica readers are aware of Switzerland’s largest meat distributor, Bell. But they may be familiar with the company’s (old) logo. This ringing bell-shaped Fraktur word mark was featured in Leslie Carbarga’s book The Logo, Font and Lettering Bible, and was a prominent symbol within the Swiss food industry landscape.


Bell’s logo has recently been updated. While the colors, basic arrangement, and shiny faux-plasticity is still in, the hand-drawn blackletter script is out. In its place is a funny looking sans serif, employing the same relative letter sizes and positions as the old logo. This new simplified arrangement doesn’t interlock as well as the old lettering did, and can’t pull off the “ringing bell” as well. The company probably would have been better off if they would have adopted a new identity scheme altogether.

One can almost imagine the boardroom discussion that brought about this decision:

“What? You mean those old-fashioned letters are supposed to reflect tradition, craft, and quality? Bullocks! They look out-dated and out-of-touch to me — even a little scary. Doesn’’t anyone have a nephew, or someone, who can serve us up something more ‘contemporary’?”

Just like the gradient effects on the new UPS logo it is unlikely that any of Bell’s customers will notice this logo revision, or even care. But the Swiss food industry’’s image has just moved one step closer to bland brand same-ness, and fans of good lettering have one more chip to carry on their shoulders.

Thanks to Till Hopstock for pointing this out to me.

Dan Reynolds is a failed spirit, living in Berlin, but at least he finally has a dog. Occasionally, he designs typefaces (even one or two good ones), but he more often writes minor copy for typefoundries and font-retail websites. In 2015, he finally started working on the dissertation he planned in 2011; it is due in Spring 2018. Wish him luck! He really needs it.

48 Comments

  1. nb says:

    Dan Reynolds – aren’t you the student from Wiesbaden and Offenbach in Germany? Nice!

    I’m “nickblume.de“.

  2. Dan Reynolds says:

    Yes, Nick, I am! Another article from me on this site, In Defense of Regionalism is about Offenbach, and our last Typostammtisch. You should check it out (and come to our next Stammtisch on the 16th). I’ll see you at your Stammtisch on the 14th.

  3. Hrant says:

    > The usual answer is �possibly, but probably not.�

    “Usual”? I guess there’s no point expressing one’s opinions if people are simply going to believe what they want anyway… My own position is quite the opposite, and I’ve been most vocal about it, including here, on Typophile, ATypI’s Leipzig conference, my website and anywhere else I get a chance. If you choose to instead put blind faith in Heller the Spinmeister because it might make you feel better, at least don’t portray it as general opinion.

    To me the Laws of Time dictate that an eventual a blackletter revival is inescapable. The question is when will it happen. There’s good news there too: in the last few years there has been a tangible increase in the calls for blackletter’s reinstatement (hence all the questions lately), as well as recognition of the reasons for its defamation (which include self-serving political propaganda). Not that the once-proud Swiss don’t increasingly feel the need to bend over by ever greater angles.

    hhp

  4. Dan Reynolds says:

    >> The usual answer is �possibly, but probably not.�

    Hrant, you know that I want to see a blackletter revivalism just as much as any other blackletter supporters do. I’m just pointing out that most graphic designers find such an idea unlikely, even if they personally don’t dislike blackletter.

    Instead of seeing an increase in the amount of blackletter in Central Europe, we are seeing a rapid decrease of it. Pretty much the only place on sees blackletter here is one newspaper mastheads, beer labels, and “traditional” food products.

    Well, just look around. New newspapers here don’t have blackletter mastheads. Even beer labels are “dumbing down” their blackletter logos (instead of using a long-s, they are replacing them with closing-s’s; they must think that people won’t be able to read them). And tradiditional food products, well�

    Someone will have to do something if this trend is ever to be reversed. I am skeptical that anyone actually will. We can sit around and talk all we want, but without some real posters and books being published in blackletter type, this “movement” is going to go nowhere.

    I can sit around Offenbach and design texturas all day (which I do�), but it doesn’t stop my classmates from muttering under their breath each time we go into the Klingspor museum “that these old specimen books are full of nothing but Nazi typefaces.” So speaks the next generation of designers.

    The “laws of time” don’t dictate a thing, much less a return to blackletter type. For blackletter to move anywhere, it has to come back into print. I support this through time and effort. I write about blackletter types, try to design them, and try to get others designers to spec them [not mine, those are horrible ;-)].

    BTW, Hrant, I can tell you that people DO buy blackletter typefaces. They also search for them. I can’t for the life of me tell you what they actually do with them after purchase, though :(

  5. Dan Reynolds says:

    >If you choose to instead put blind faith in Heller the Spinmeister because it might make you feel better, at least don’t portray it as general opinion.

    Again, I don’t put any credence in these reactionary ideas. But the general response is always “it is possible for blackletter to be revived, but it probably won’t happen.” I shouldn’t have to tell you that; there is no need to mince words here.

  6. a) it’s been a while since a logo redesign made my stomach turn � thanks for that

    b) Interesingly, Miles Newlyn has a link to an article in Canada’s National Post re the resurgence of the blackletter in the fashion industry. Having just made myself a pair of pants with the letters “L U S T” in Fette Fraktur on the front/back of each leg, I can attest to the trend. (Try cutting a FF cap “S” out of cloth … just try it.)

    OK, a trend is not a revival, but I do think that a love of blackletter is tightly tied to a love of ornament, and we all know where that’s going.

    I for one, plan on setting an upcoming AR (albeit small and non-corporate) exclusively in several blackletters … unless someone stops me. I am, btw, currently looking for a “soft” blackletter with more rounded, less spikey forms. No need to hijack the thread, just email me if you have suggestions.

  7. Dan Reynolds says:

    When I think of a “softer” blackletter, I think of one of two things:

    1. A font which has rounded edges, i.e., not any hard angles or straight lines

    or

    2. A Rotunda, which is a more round type of blackletter (there are four types of blackletter, at least: textura, schwabacher, rotunda, and fraktur). Rotundas were used in non-Germanic lands (the countries with “softer” languages) like France and Italy.

    Take a look at:
    San Marco
    Beneta

    Clairvaux
    Miles Newlyn’s Ferox
    and (a Fraktur?) Linotype Richmond Fraktur

    This is more like what I was describing in category #1:
    Linotype Auferstehung

    But Eduardo Omine is working on something fitting that description better.

  8. Dan Reynolds says:

    Marian, I’m glad that you are at least using Blackletter as ornament, i.e., style. If it weren’t for stylistic reasons, I don’t think anyone would be using Blackletter at the moment.

    However, Hrant and I probably agree (oh Hrant, please don’t hate me!) that the key for a Blackletter revival lies in substance, not in style. Designers need to spec Blackletter text type, and clients need to approve it, in order for Blackletter to appear substantially before the public again.

    Good luck with your annual report.

  9. Aha, thanks Dan. The rotundas are, imho, kinda yucky, but Eduardo Omine’s is in the range of what I’m looking for (and the Auferstehung is interesting enough to join Ferox on my list of “wants”).

    Forgive the sidetrack, but these are examples of what I have in mind:


    (both of these images from Typology by Steve Heller and Louise Fili.)

    Are they not incredibly delicious? If you build it, I will … you-know.

  10. Dan Reynolds says:

    Hi Marian,

    Sorry for recommending the “yucky” rotundas. They are what I think about when I hear the words “round” and “blackletter” together. Rudolf Koch’s work, and other Klingspor/1920s-era things are what I think about when I contemplate “creative” and/or “beautiful” and “blackletter.” So it was just a mental keywording era.

    I’m going to e-mail you offline about your “if you build it�”

    Thanks,
    Dan

  11. Hmmm. Interesting comment re ornament and style. I feel compelled to direct you to this discussion.

    I think the key to any kind of resurrection of the blackletter is readability. Clients, while generally ignorant of the finer details of any type design, can become enormously picky once something catches their eye. Indecipherable “k”s or lispy “s”s are the kind of thing I could imagine losing a typographic battle over.

    Familiarity helps, and if familiarity begins with style, then I say rave on, sisters & brothers, rave on.

  12. Hrant says:

    Yes, Dan, I think text is the key, because the use of blackletter in the display realm will by default be brushed off as “showy”. Only text can foster true blue acceptance of a style. And legibility has indeed been the missing link; a Fraktur (the only subclass of blackletter that I personally like) that’s a subtle enough balance between form and function has yet to be made.

    hhp

  13. Dan Reynolds says:

    So, moving back to logos, aside from Beer companies, the only other mainstream logo that uses Blackletter that I can think of is Firestone (please ignore the not-Blackletter Bridgestone logo).

    Anyone else got anything?

  14. Hrant says:

    Disneyland, dude.

    hhp

  15. Matt Briggs says:

    I’ve been a fan of black letter as a body face rather than as a heading or logo, especially since reading a history of printing book a while ago.

    My understanding is that Black Letter hasn’t been used in this capacity for a long, long time. But in picking up an old book, it has a really pretty feel. The older the book, more natural it seems. I wonder if this is a quality of it being cut from wood rather than metal? In any case, I think a digital face would probably look just as harsh as a metal face. Perhaps a face using a lot of variants, an Open Type face with some kind of plug-in for a layout program? In any case, there is no demand for black face, I’m sure, as a body face, right now.

    I live on the West Coast of North America, and black face, via Spain, via Mexico, and then California is very popular in graphitti murals and tattoos. The tone, then, is kind of a gangster aesthetic. However, I’ve noticed since wanting a black letter that doesn’t suggest Black Sabbath lettering or olde thyme typesetting, that black letter is also often used to spell out the names of families on vans and trucks. It also shows up on Hispanic community centers and churches, and so is actually very pervasive in my neighborhood. The Germanic black letter, however, is absent.

    I could see then with the combination of both street black letter and hispanic black letter combined with a more natural digital typesetting lending itself to a revival of black letter as a body face. (I’ve also wanted to see more experimentation with diacritical marks and a relaxing of spelling laws.)

    It would jump then past the nefarious reputation black letter and would coincide with the need to create more organic text blocks. It’s pretty much a done deal that a digital layout is far more precise than even the best hand set letter press. In fact, it is the pervasive presence of human error that makes letter press so charming and legible.

    That is an idea I’ve ad at the back of my mind anyway.

  16. Hrant says:

    > I wonder if this is a quality of it
    > being cut from wood rather than metal?

    Wood? Blackletter body faces (like any other styles of body face) have all been in metal as far as I know; and I fail to remember any blackletter face even in large wood sizes – although I’m sure there have been some.

    Your idea of using letterpress as a facilitator of a revival is quite interesting. And the good news is that this doesn’t preclude digital type, thanks to photopolymer technology.

    hhp

  17. John Butler says:

    Marian,

    Your first and second examples are Koch-Fraktur and Extrafette Bernhard-Fraktur, digitizations of which are available from Gerhard Helzel. His main site is here. I’m not sure about that third design, but I do rather like it.

    There is also a blackletter discussion forum at typophile.

  18. dan, i have gotten accustomed to a kind of a redesign-watch since we scratched the discussion some time ago with our talk about corporate id, ups, langnese, iglo and others. i have some more of those but i dont want to “spam” this threat.
    in my opinion the general tendency is very clear. since redesign has become a more fluent practice large amounts of redesigns or “modernizations” it appear like they are applied as skins are in software interfaces. with “skin” i mean the “appearance” as an indepentent visual entity like in itunes or similar programms – indepentendt because they are split from structure although in software they do configure structure to a certain degree. in graphics they dont. skins applied to a logotype dramatically change the function and meaning of a logo. logotypes now are treated like fashion. a certain “space” of the logotype has become open for a certain amount of “extra”-representation. identity has become a collective identity. logos are split (think of what is going on in our school – its exactly the same thing). its a digital phenomena. its about that style, form and meaning are combined without necessarily becoming one. think of the recent cover of the Gestalten Publishers brochure. the assemled aspect is accentuated extremely and is also learned to be read as a combination. this is part of the “typography of images” that Max Bruinsma called for. its the combinatory relationship that appears between the layers of a assembled logotype and that produces the meaning.

    skins function like a kind of uniform they separate graphic style as a part of geometry of form – form becomes dual converting companies “signatures” into bodies on which surfaces where graphic fashions can be projected onto. i dont think that this i a design attitude, it is very absolute application of style that seems to be given preference over the actual form of the logotype. its a sub-statement which is uniform and first of all old, because it takes us back in the early ninties to the idea of naville brodys Blur Typeface.

    design tools today do not condition form by themselves. in my opinion its an organicism. blur-skins work to organify the computergenerated images. it has nothing to do anymore with the designers intention to produce a certain meaning with what he or she is doing.

    its a bout integrating into a larger picture not building a identity.

    Till

  19. > …aside from Beer companies…

    How about Newspapers or Nazi fanshops…

    P�bel und Gesocks

    Pitbull

    i am sorry to post this shit but its so funny i recently read a Cooper Union Publication about Fraktur and National Identity and they say that usually nazis mess up the type mistaking fraktur as a typeface of german nazi-identity.

    Dan, if you dont have this yet get it, its your book.

    greetings till

  20. Dan Reynolds says:

    >i have some more of those but i dont want to �spam� this thread.

    Till, you can spam this thread all you want! You could probably even post your own branding article, too. Designers never seem to tire of looking at more examples.

    Your point about “skins” I think is very appropriate. I remember when skins first came out. Although many desktop publishers seem to love them, the mainstream press, publisher, and designer crowd seemed to avoid them. Maybe listening to their advice, companies viewed them as “cheap.”

    This has changed, a lot. Part of it might have to do with a general overall shift in the types of relationships designers and clients tend to have nowadays. I don’t know. But graphic design, and especially logo design has “caught up with technology” in this regard.

    Sort of like Fontlab’s new Photofonts. The first time I saw someone testing these out (I think that I we saw it together, actually�), my first thought was “oh no! soon this stuff is going to be everywhere.” When I first saw skins 7 or so years ago, I thought “this stuff will never catch on, it is just too cheesy.” I was wrong.

    >Dan, if you dont have this yet get it, its your book.
    Yeah, I’ve already purchased it. We have a couple copies at work, too. It has become my standard English language guide to Blackletter typefaces, which I always keep at my side when writting those sorts of typeface descriptions.

  21. Hrant says:

    That’s indeed a great book – it was what triggered my interest in blackletter. That and a 1905 thick German novel I bought.

    But Till, sadly I don’t think they’re “mistaken”, just following mass perception. Which however we should try to change.

    hhp

  22. Ok – it’s a general view of fraktur that of course makes the context work.

    about the bell logo. here is my comment: the problem i see is not the “contemporaryness” of the shapes as such but the unlogic that is produced by the inproper adoption (or better nonadoption) of the shape. the deformation was connected to the twisted cut in the old version now it looks more like a banner for a university or a sportsevent.

    the deformation of the name is somehow decontextualised and now produces the questions. nothing is justified anymore the whole thing looks melted – or blurred. the components fall apart even though they are all part of the blurred mass.

    the extreme high integrity within the construct is fucked up and ignored.

    to me this represents a highly formal approach ignorant to the relations between the forms. i think it can be said that its kind of an antitypographic attitude that shaped the new bell logo.

    the logo was treated like an image of a logo. its a picture process that is becoming dominant here. instead of making a completely new logo, just the look has been edited and the consequence is that everything doesnt make sense anymore. its a top down process just like putting a filter over the old logo.

    to me this is a typical software process. the starting point for the redesign seemed to have been the old logotype as an image uploaded on a screen’s surface in a computer instead of what the image means and brings together (except qualities like color and basic geometry (circle). this bell logo is version two of the same. just altered digitally. it looks like the designers spend hours making it look like gaussian blur filter.

    well well – i am done.

  23. 42ndSSD says:

    I thought for sure you were talking about this:

    That be the Bell System logo, which even had its own character slot in troff. (Later versions of troff added slots for the Death Star and Cheerio.)

  24. Marco says:

    So… the only other mainstream logo that uses Blackletter that I can think of is Firestone… Anyone else got anything?

    Surely the biggest swathe of Blackletter in recent years has been on hip-hop/rap logos. Check out the CD sleeves and t-shirts for Cypress Hill, Ice-T, Bone Thugs n’Harmony, Wu Tang Clan, etc. Suspect it’sadopted the style from heavy rock, to convey threat, darkness, violence and horror. (Whether it succeeds is another story.) For one sector of society, these are among the biggest brands after Nike.

    This approach has then been adopted to convey that desirable urban/street feel for products that are way more mainstream, such as hot computer game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. No reason at all for that subtitle to be in Blackletter, save that it’s resonant of a rap t-shirt.

  25. Gary says:

    The Red Roof Inn chain of discount motels uses blackletter in there logotype.

  26. Thanks John. B. for that.

    Till’s thoughts about skins on logotypes is one of the more interesting things I’ve read recently. It is so true. Looking at many “redesigns” this way you can actually see the digital skin stretched over the the old logo (then, often, pumped with helium). This is particularly common in the packaged food industry.

  27. Designers that use Graphic User Interfaces (GUI) are doing pretty much the same as Programmers. Software is an extension of Hardware but both is Mechanism (digitally electronic in this case).
    Software is the nesting of the computers architecture in itself – its dynamised hardware – i guess thats why its called “soft”.

    Skins in logotypes and other “phenomens from software/programming-heaven” become increasingly visible as Designing as an activity turns more and more into programming (you might call it meta or meta meta design since design is by nature kind of meta…).

    Generating a Font is writing a Postscript-Programm on your Harddisk. There is no actual difference between Files (data) and Programms (applications) in the way the Machine deals with them. Both represent only adresses that call (not necessarily recall) a certain set of Data from the harddrive to the working memory (the actual configuration of the whole computersystem as one possible state of the mechanism). A file doesnt even have a size. when you call up the infodialog the computer goes to the adress and checks the occupied harddiskspace which which belongs to the same string of information which is merely indexed in the adress and outputs in on the screen. all files are just bookmarks just like a hyperlink. a file is not a entity that has size – a hyperlink and a file are indifferent.

    the aesthetics of screens are doubling themselves in each operation just like the nesting-structure that the computersystem itself is based on. designers tend to duplicate the architecture of the computersystem in the design process. think about system designs in Typedesign-practice which should better be called “Fontmaking”-practice.
    i am sorry to use them as an example (Dan) but a quick look at Lineto is a good example for how the computer-design process is doubled in the designed Typeface. There is little exceptions (maybe five or six Typefaces). But when you look at the collection and think of them as Styles it seems incredibly divers – though from the way they are made it is not.

    Marian: My thoughts come from trying to develop a Theory of Typography as relational Integration which aims towards serving as a model for a different view. Not to replace the present and traditional perspectives but to give an alternative that can help the designer to reflect about different aspects and consider design more broadly than just in the format of an image such as through the glasses of “style”. i try to see typography not as style or form but rather as constellations and relationships that bear certain potentials which are not necessarily reducible to aspects of the actual form only or on the image of style. It will be based on the idea of a Navigator of interrelated qualities rather than using terminology of a Classification of form.

    then we might never talk about “blackletter” again! – No just joking…

    Till

    PS: …did i mention that i am in the Switzerland right now?

  28. Sorry for the monologe and this total Tone. it got out of control.

    …of cause we also know that a “real” designer does not need neither classification nor navigator. My interest is more in the model itself as in its application.

    Till

  29. Relational Integrity…what else is it?

  30. Dan Reynolds says:

    Huh? What do you mean?

  31. Peter Bain says:

    A little late to the party but…

    I’m still partial to the observation that blackletter revivals are (largely) a type professional’s hobby. Remember most new applications are for display sizes. Most of the historical (read “useful”) text faces are largely ignored or not widely available. How many designers here (the ones that select faces) have a willing client for more than one paragraph of Luthersche Fraktur? Or one of Goudy’s schmaltzy calligraphics for the North Americans??

  32. Bobby Henderson says:

    I agree with the observations of others about the popularity of Blackletter type being strongest in areas like “gangsta rap” and latino street cultures. Advertising for rap CDs, metal music, some video games with street/horror motifs seem to be the main areas where I see it. Blackletter use is pretty rare elsewhere.

    In doing sign design and manufacturing, it is a very rare event that I get to use a blackletter font. I could put together a large outdoor banner for our local Oktoberfest event and go a full year before needing to use a Blackletter font again. Sometimes people will visit our shop wanting white vinyl graphics set in Old English for their vehicle windshields. I really cringe when they want it in all caps. As far as I’m concerned, setting a blackletter font in all caps is just as bad as setting Brush Script in all caps.

  33. Hrant says:

    There’s no denying the current situation. The question is, should we revive blackletter, and how do we do it?

    hhp

  34. Bobby Henderson says:

    The only way to “revive” blackletter type is to use it whenever it is appropriate to the theme. That’s an obvious point, but more accusatory of how certain trends in type or schools of though in design seem to get applied everywhere.

    For example, just look how many times Trajan gets used in movie marketing. I used to like Trajan, but now I’m beginning to hate it for all the overuse. From my vantage point, it looks like the movie marketing people are literally sleeping on the job. Of course, there could be some focus group study everyone in Hollywood follows like the gospel stating Trajan must be used on as many movie titles as possible.

    This kind of sameness appears in more subtle, yet bland, ways in a great deal of mass advertising and mass graphic design. It’s tough to be adventurous and have the luxury of spending a little extra time on the design to find type truly relevant to the theme of the project. Too often we just lapse back to whatever worked in the past.

    I think one can be adventurous and different with blackletter type. Why not turn the usual convention on its head and use blackletter type in a different way? It may be cool to use it in unexpected places. For instance, who’s to say people won’t be in love with blackletter type 300 years from now? I think there’s ways of doing futuristic spins on it. This is certainly within the realm of possibility since many styles of type we use are hundreds or even thousands of years old.

  35. Cassie says:

    Hey everyone,

    Thanks for the article, Dan! Took me a while to find it, as I haven’t been on the forum for a while so I am a definite latecomer to this party. I agree very much with the last comment, from Bobby, that Blackletter needs to be used in unexpected ways in order to stand a chance of any “revivial” which would be more than a passing fetish. Currently, I think Blackletter is undergoing a sort of revival, but it is not the sort it needs. It is being used a great deal with young companies making Lowrider bikes (the pedal kind), which are an upcoming phenomenon and other companies which wish to appear “alternative” in some way, such as clothing labels like “Fabric”.

    But the fact remains that Blackletter is still being used to connote negativity and things passed and is not being used as a body text, so its revival can only be short lived, until the current fashions it is representing become unfasionable. Herein lies Blackletter’s problem, as it keeps getting caught up in “movements” of one sort or another and becomes laden with meaning.

    Oh and by the way Dan, you know how I said why not do a kid’s book in Blackletter? Well, I am going to try it…..wish me luck!

  36. Dan Reynolds says:

    Good luck, Cassie! Please show us the results.

  37. Hrant says:

    Cassie, I’d like to see that too!
    What’s the story about?

    BTW, I agree that unexpected uses would help, but even better than somewhat random attempts would be deliberately “contrarian” ones; the best one I’ve been able to think of (have I mentioned it here already?) is a book about Yiddish.

    hhp

  38. Tom says:

    > Having just made myself a pair of pants
    > with the letters �L U S T� in Fette
    > Fraktur on the front/back

    Once again, the Atlantic division of our common language made this sound even more exciting than it undoubtably is.

    T

  39. Till says:

    Underware is working on a Script Typeface that has a kind of a Blackletter Feeling to it. They showed it at Typoberlin. I think i remember it looked a bit like Fanfare. I dont know but i always liked Fanfare. It is maybe just very indirectly related with Blackletters but it is super-unique. there is also two Typefaces by Gerrit Hague that remind me of Blackletterness or rather Scripts.
    Text , Klute and Harbour
    are very nice Constructions, i think. Although they are all gymick-types or very “far”-parodies of “blackletter- or script-ness” they show a nice degree of knowledge and as Displayfaces they are not as simple as for example B�ro Destructs typographic Display constructions.

    Text always reminds me of ITC Honda, which is actually very ugly EXCEPT when you use it in ALL CAPS. then somehow uglyness turns into something new. There is a very nice (nicely ugly) Y in it.

    Till

  40. Till says:

    Three and Scripts!

    T.

  41. John Morse says:

    I really cringe when they want it in all caps. As far as I�m concerned, setting a blackletter font in all caps is just as bad as setting Brush Script in all caps.

    Perhaps you could help the revolution by designing a Gangsta Blackletter that looks good in all caps.

  42. Bobby Henderson says:

    ITC Honda, as well as fonts like American Text, exposes some of the more hard-edged and even constructivist possibilities with blackletter type. Honda also takes some strides to be more legible. However, that face is really for large, display use only. It tends to look clunky if it is set small on the page and given normally loose tracking. But it works well when designed into a tight, unified logotype. The thick weight of the face lends itself to a variety of type effects.

    To risk getting off topic a bit (but not really), Leslie Cabarga’s Logo, Font and Lettering Bible was mentioned on this thread’s original story. I ordered a copy of the book (direct from Cabarga), and am really impressed with it. For $30, you get a handsome, 200+ page hardcover volume with lots of great stuff inside -and even signed by Leslie. Highly recommended.

  43. Hrant says:

    Isn’t Honda a “jackboot” blackletter?

    hhp

  44. Dan Reynolds says:

    Not in my book. In my book, Honda isn’t “blackletter enough” to be a Blackletter typeface.* So, since it can’t be a jackboot blackletter either, if you would follow my logic one step further.

    Tannenberg is my stock answer for the question “what does a jackbook blackletter look like?”

    *There is no doubting that Honda is a black letter face, but I’m not going to call it a blackletter, or Blackletter face. And Fanfare falls of of my spectrum all together: I can’t imagine that it could ever suffer from the Blackletter-prejudice. It could be used for all sorts of display purposes without turning an eye.

  45. Valerie says:

    I can see what the designers were doing – and Bell. The fear of change seems evident.

    In the end, the consumer will not compare the two logos side by side and inevitably we are left with the new one.

    And So? What does the new logo mean? I keep thinking of upside-down apples. Is the negative space at the bottom supposed to be a path? If the success of a logo is because it’s the visual equivalent of the company it represents, funny-looking or blackletter typeface – whatever it is, it’s aim needed to be intimate with Bell. It seems the aim was more toward modernism. This is why this logo could work for almost any company. Hard as I try, I can’t picture meat, tradition or success.

  46. I don’t go shopping that often, but on the weekend I saw this:

    Oh yeah … a classic Canadian icon. Alas, I cheat somewhat because although this treatment is familiar to me, it is seldom used, if at all.

    It’s worth noting that The Hudson’s Bay, est. in something like 1670, predates Canada as a country. But the blackletter looks as though it may be relatively recent, if you compare this 1934 image with this 1890 image.

    The logo that I remember from … forever … is this big swashy, blackletter “B” which I’m certain used to be attached to the appropriate blackletter lower case but has, sometime in the past 20 years (sorry, just not paying attention here) got pasted onto a sans in this abominable combination.

  47. Till says:

    response to valerie

    …the consumer will not compare the two logos side by side …just we do…

    Is the negative space at the bottom supposed to be a path?

    i guess i see a leaf that is usually put on a plate for DECORATION. the thing is that for example Iglo a company for frozen food that also has recently changed their logo (from a fork) to a leaf. tendency seems esotheric – organicism and nature as a sign of nostalgy for nature – our denaturalisation? think of the microsoft explorer, o2 or apples aqua – or audio visualizers. this has been going on for last years after the internetrevolution of late nineties (at least europe!).

    funny-looking or blackletter typeface – whatever it is…

    i pity the new one for its lack of adaption of the old one. at some point i think that if a company has a visual identity and it has no connection whatsoever with the companies activities, though this was not the case here, as long as an identity is existing at all it should be preserved in some way because throwing it away is like denying who you are and denying history.

    Till

  48. should be preserved in some way because throwing it away is like denying who you are and denying history.

    This goes in hand, somewhat, with my tentative, armchair movement to have certain graphic marks given historical preservation status, like buildings. This kind of thinking is very unamerican, however, and is usually met with a certain amount of horror, scorn and derision. It is also, I realize, impractical. Then again, I write this on the very day that I advocate (over on Speak Up) building identities designed to be adopted and mutated at will.

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