#E1523D
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Stéphane Mallarmé, (1842-1898), Jamais un coup de dés n’abolira le hasard : poème (épreuves d’imprimerie). - (Paris : A. Vollard, 2 juillet 1897). - 39 cm
Un Coup de Dés Jamais N’Abolira Le Hasard (A Throw of the Dice will Never Abolish Chance) is a poem by the French Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé. Its intimate combination of free verse and unusual typographic layout anticipated the 20th century interest in graphic design and concrete poetry. The poem was written by Mallarmé in 1897 and published in May of that same year in the magazine Cosmopolis, but was published in book form only in 1914, 16 years after the author’s death, based on his extensive notes and exacting instructions. The first edition was printed on July 10, 1914 by the Imprimerie Sainte Catherine at Bruges, in a private 60-copy issue. The poem is spread over 20 pages, in various typefaces, amidst liberal amounts of blank space. Each pair of consecutive facing pages is to be read as a single panel; the text flows back and forth across the two pages, along irregular lines.
The sentence that names the poem is split into three parts, printed in large capital letters on panels 1, 6, and 8. A second textual thread in smaller capitals apparently begins on the right side of panel 1, QUAND MÊME LANCÉ DANS DES CIRCONSTANCES ÉTERNELLES DU FOND D’UN NAUFRAGE (“Even when thrown under eternal circumstances from the bottom of a shipwreck”). Other interlocking threads in various typefaces start throughout the book. At the bottom right of the last panel is the sentence Toute Pensée émet un Coup de Dés (“Every Thought issues a Throw of Dice”).
“Jamais un coup de dés n’abolira le hasard” : épreuves d’imprimerie d’ “Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard”
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The Moon alphabet was invented by Dr. William Moon (1818-1894). Dr Moon lost his sight completely at the age of 21 after being partially sighted throughout his childhood. He learnt all the embossed reading systems available at the time but found them unsatisfactory so invented his own system. He brought out his first booklet in the new alphabet, ‘The Last Days of Polycarp’, in 1847.
News of Dr Moon’s new alphabet spread quickly and he was soon swamped with requests for parts of Bible. At first Dr Moon printed all the documents at his home in Queens Road, Brighton, UK. In 1856 however, he managed to obtain funding from the blind philanthropist Sir Charles Lowther to set up a printing press and workshop nearby. The Moon Printing Works operated on the same premises until 1960, producing books and magazines in 471 different languages.
Dr Moon also travelled to many parts of the British Isles and other parts of the world setting up printing presses, libraries and home teaching socities. After his death in 1894, his daughter Adelaide continued his work.
Today Moon’s alphabet is little used or known outside the UK. Since the 1990s though there has been a revival of interest in it.
The Moon alphabet consists of embossed shapes which can be read by touch. Some of the Moon letters resemble the letters of the Latin alphabet, others are simplified letters or other shapes. The Moon alphabet is easier to learn than Braille, particularly for people who lose their sight in later life. The letters of the Moon alphabet can represent individual sounds, parts of words, whole words or numbers.
img via: yankodesign
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Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel vnd Richtscheyt (Four Books on Measurement). Albrecht Dürer, 1538
via: bvbm1.bib
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Artificially grown bismuth crystal illustrating the stair-step crystal structure, with a 1 cm cube of bismuth meta
Bismuth is a chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. Bismuth, a trivalent poor metal, chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. Bismuth has classically been considered to be the heaviest naturally occurring stable element, in terms of atomic mass. Recently, however, it has been found to be very slightly radioactive: its only primordial isotope bismuth-209 decays via alpha decay into thallium-205 with a half-life of more than a billion times the estimated age of the universe. Bismuth has unusually low toxicity for a heavy metal.
Elemental bismuth is one of very few substances of which the liquid phase is denser than its solid phase (water being the best-known example). Bismuth expands 3.32% on solidification; therefore, it was long an important component of low-melting typesetting alloys, where it compensated for the contraction of the other alloying components.
Though virtually unseen in nature, high-purity bismuth can form distinctive colorful hopper crystals.Source: Wikipedia (via Freaky Fauna and David Benque)
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The essentials of lettering; a manual for students and designers (1912)
by Thomas Ewing French and Robert Meiklejohnvia: Archive
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In 1868 one Joseph Sloper, having patented several devices for punching out railway tickets to cancel them, turned his attention to precancelling postage stamps with companies initials. On the 13th of March 1868, after much persuasion, the Postmaster-General of Great Britain finally stated that he would “…not object to the perforation of postage stamps …” with a view to protect merchants and others, as far as possible, from the theft of stamps used by them. The Post Office had been slow in accepting Joseph Slopers invention.
The term perfin [Perforated initials] was coined by a New York collector in 1943 a Mr. H. Card. In the UK about the same era SPIFS [Stamps Perforated by Initials of Firms and Societies] was used. The accepted definition of a perfin in Australia is a stamp which has initials or any figure or design perforated into it by a business, society or other organization.
And so the perfin was born, and was quickly adopted by companies both large and small. Not all perfins were company initials. Some firms used their full name, although this was against the Post Office’s wishes, as they saw it as a form of advertising. This form of precancelling stamps was to be without doubt the most successful security endorsement and is still in use today.
The earliest known approval by an Australian firm to use its firm’s precancelled perforated initials was granted on 27 September 1877 by the postal department in Adelaide, South Australia, to the wholesale grocers firm of D. & J. Fowler Ltd. A two-die perforator was manufactured for D. & J. Fowler Ltd. by Joseph Sloper in early 1880. A sample strike [Sloper number 5457] is to be found in the Sloper Workshop Impression Book.
via: perfins.com.au
Photo: Australian Pre-decimal - Range of Official PERFINS Mint. First 2 rows are MNH, next 3 rows are MH (except 2nd last stamp - 1 1/2d green which is mint no gum). Last row is Mint no gum.
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Sociology of the Family by Michael Anderson
Cover from Penguin Education set via Flickr
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The Deseret Alphabet – Western Experiments in Writing Systems
Dohn Dilworth
In 1850, Brigham Young (1801-1877) Leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) commissioned 2 typefaces and published 4 books using the Deseret Alphabet, an alternative writing system for the English language. The new system provided a phonetic alphabet that included a single letter for each sound in the english language. The alphabet was seen as a solution to help teach the many immigrants arriving to the area the English Language. For your enjoyment, I’ve included some more information, and a few pictures of this curious alphabet.
via: johndilworth.com
link: omniglot.com
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11 items for: “ABCDERIUM”
via: Catich Collection
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The invention of printing. A collection of facts and opinions descriptive of early prints and playing cards, the blockbooks of the fifteenth century, the legends of Lourens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem, and the work of John Gutenberg and his associates. Illustrated with facsimiles of early types and woodcuts (1876)
De Vinne, Theodore Low
via: Archive
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Pacific coast blue book, containing specimens of type, printing machinery, printing material (1896)
American Type Founders Company; Thomas, Frederick Folger, b. 1885via: Archive
