[Written for the whalingmuseumblog.org, November 2, 2009.]

Typography is the art of designing the written word. Type is ubiquitous. It is in the books, magazines, and websites we read, the street signs we use to find our way, the fonts we choose in our MS Word documents. Letters are everywhere. In the landscape, letters reflect the culture of a time and place. As a typographer I am interested in how letters and type “live” in society, and how they change as life around them changes.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been researching lettering in New Bedford, Massachusetts. New Bedford had enough wealth early on to finance documentation of the town. Later it gained enough international fame (when the movie “Moby Dick” was produced) to warrant continued historic preservation. These days, along with the National Park Services and the Waterfront Historic Action LeaguE (WHALE) — which help keep historic buildings intact — New Bedford has the Whaling Museum Library to keep historic documents and photos archived and available to those studying the history of New Bedford and the history of whaling.

New Bedford is an excellent source of inspiration because of it’s financial, social, and industrial past: originally settled by Quakers from Plymouth Colony, it has been the whaling capital of the world, a major stop on the underground railroad, and one of the biggest cotton textiles producers in the US. It is also a small city that fought urban renewal, and now struggles to revitalize it’s downtown and to re-assert it’s identity.

Finally, the longevity of the town allows me to map its history against technological, political, cultural, and even typographic developments.

THE PROJECT: TYPEFACES OF NEW BEDFORD

My early personal interests in New Bedford were linked to the landscape: how certain street corners or buildings changed over time. (I can’t help but revel in the fact that life goes on around these buildings. Generations of people come and go. Businesses change. Tastes change. Technology changes. And thus, signs change.)

Later, in order to expand the scope of my research, I enlisted the help of some of my students. [type]Faces of New Bedford is an on-going undergraduate research project I facilitate with Juniors and Seniors at UMass Dartmouth as a typeface design project. Working with students allows me to conduct research on the role of lettering, writing, and typography over a period of 300+ years in a single place. In return, the project allows the members of my “research team” to learn about the process of designing and producing a typeface, while learning more about the history of New Bedford.

We lose a part of our history when letters are destroyed without documentation. Seeing how type lives in the context of society helps me better understand the history of my own field, and I’ve found it helps my students to identify with those that lived in the area. They begin to connect with and better understand both the history of the landscape and the history of typography.

THE PROCESS

In 2007 and 2008, students conducted research on the history of New Bedford — meeting with representatives from the National Park Service, WHALE, and the New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library. They identified inspirational aspects of New Bedford’s history and found examples of writing and/or typography related to the times/events they were most interested in studying.

Students then designed digital versions of their chosen writing/lettering and wrote abstracts explaining their research (both “scholarly” and “creative”). The final result: 30 working typefaces and a series of 30 posters, each highlighting a different time in the history of New Bedford (1705-2007).

STUDENT WORK

Thirty typefaces have been designed over the years.

Some typefaces represent lettering from buildings and signs: the Cherry and Company Building, circa 1920; Signage for the Brightman Stationary Store located in the A. E. Coffin Building, circa 1930; Lincoln’s Department Store, circa 1938; A Boiler Repair and Welding shop, circa 1958.

Inspiration: Art Deco lettering on the Cherry and Company building, circa 1920. Photo by Jennifer Soares 2008.

Inspiration: New England Boiler Repair and Welding (in the building where "Cork” is now located) circa 1958. Photo from the Library of Congress Archives. Close-up of sign inset.

Other typefaces represent lettering from printed materials: text from the New Bedford Mercury, circa 1807; a broadside for an anti-slavery meeting, circa 1853; a broadside for the labor party, circa 1920.

Inspiration: A section from The New Bedford Mercury, circa 1807. From the New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library Archives.

Many typefaces are based on primary sources students found at the New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library.

Steve Hickey based his typeface on the writing of John Akin, a town clerk in Dartmouth in 1705. Steve’s typeface is from the oldest artifact — a 300 year-old page of handwritten notes. Steve had to negotiate which letters to “use” in his final design. When we write by hand, we often form our letters differently from word to word. You can see below how John Atkin’s “o” changed as he wrote. Steve had to design an “o” to work in the context of every word.

Inspiration: A section from notes written by John Akin, town clerk in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, 1705. From the New Bedford Whaling Museum Library Archives. Note: image modified for legibility and color by Steve Hickey.

Typeface designed by Steve Hickey, 2007.

Amy Williams was inspired by the logbook kept by Seth Barlow, Jr., keeper on the brig The Nancy. Amid the day-to-day accounts about the weather, who had gotten sick or died, and the ships they saw on the open seas, she found pages of experimentation with form. Some of the letters written by Seth Barlow, Jr. where elegant script, others were bold, blocky, Roman forms. There were literally dozens of “fonts” to work with. Seth Barlow was a born letterer.

Inspiration: Logbook kept by Seth Barlow, Jr., keeper on the brig The Nancy, circa 1807. From the New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library Archives. Note: image modified (color) by Amy Williams.

Typeface designed by Amy Williams, 2007.

Eric Galvez was intrigued by New Bedford’s wealth during the periods of prosperity linked first to the Whaling Industry and later to the Cotton Textile Industry. He was amazed that New Bedford used to be the wealthiest city in the United States! He found examples of Old Dartmouth and New Bedford insurance maps at the New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library — maps that represent land ownership during prosperous times. As Eric designed a “prosperous” typeface based on one of the insurance maps, he truly understood for the first time how a typeface can communicate something more than the words on the page.

Inspiration: Cover of a Fairhaven Insurance map from 1906 -- the height of the Cotton Textile Industry in New Bedford.

Typeface designed by Eric Galvez, 2007.

THE FUTURE

Students continue to work on typefaces inspired by the history of New Bedford. We’ve currently narrowed our focus to signs, and are working toward the day we will have a full New Bedford Typeface — a collection of various lettering styles from different periods in New Bedford’s history.

Unlike “regular” typefaces (e.g., Times New Roman), New Bedford won’t come in regular, bold, and italic. New Bedford is a type family built upon the history of a place, and will offer styles related to history, such as New Bedford 1880, 1920, and 1950.

Every semester we get a little closer to bringing New Bedford’s history to  life in a new way. Through the letters that “lived” in New Bedford — letters and signs that changed as life around them changed.

New Bedford 1920 is in production. It is based on the Art Deco lettering from the Cherry and Company sign shown earlier in this post. The typeface was designed by Jennifer Soares, and is being refined and expanded by Justin Lilak at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

New Bedford 1958 is in production. It is based on lettering from the Boiler Repair and Welding sign shown earlier in the post. Originally designed by Kayla Hardy, the typeface is being refined and expanded by Jimmy Lee at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

I grew up in Michigan, 500 miles from New York City. But I know what typeface represents the Big Apple: Broadway.

I’m not the only one who makes this connection (signifier: Broadway, signified: NYC). One of my favorite visual puns in New Bedford, Massachusetts is the sign for “Times Square.” Times Square is an office building/galleria in the old New Bedford Times building. It has no relation (nor bears any resemblance) to the Times Square in NYC.

Except, of course, for the sign:

But the sign doesn’t really bear a resemblance to any of the signs in the Times Square. Nor to typefaces generally found in NYC (either historic or contemporary). We just think it does. Just like Claire associated the OfficeMax logo with Clifford the Big Red Dog (see previous post), we’ve learned to associate Broadway with NYC.

BROADWAY = ART DECO
Broadway was designed in 1928 by Morris Fuller Benton. A prolific type designer, best known for designing revivals of classic fonts, he was also influenced by what he saw coming to life around him. And in 1928, that was Art Deco.

Often described as “purely decorative,” Art Deco represented luxury and prosperity. It celebrated new technologies and materials. It was opulent and luxurious — a reaction to the forced austerity imposed by WWI on the French artists and designers who initiated the style.

Unveiled in Europe at the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Art in Paris in 1925, Art Deco quickly spread to the United States where it continued to gain popularity.

ART DECO = PROSPERITY
In the 1920s the U.S. was feeling prosperous (even though millions of people lived below the poverty line). We had economically benefited from the war, and didn’t have to rebuild when it ended, since it was a war fought on foreign soil.

U.S. workers were more productive and paid better than before the war. Products previously available only to the wealthy (radios, refrigerators, toasters, washing machines, automobiles) became more available to the middle-class family, because mass production allowed for products to be manufactured less expensively. A new system of credit allowed families to “spend on the margin.” That is, to purchase new products even if they couldn’t afford them.

The increase in a consumer-based culture lead to a rising stock market — kept afloat by Federal Reserves that kept interest rates low in order to promote more spending.

(It’s like déjà vu all over again…)

Various cities experienced a construction boom in the 1920s. Cities strategically located along waterways were transportation hubs for materials and products. European immigration had dropped due to the war and newly imposed immigration regulations, but those that came flocked to the growing cities — providing a labor base for construction.

PROSPERITY = NYC
Dozens of buildings around the world are Art Deco. My home state boasts The Fisher Theater (Detroit, 1928)

But for some reason Art Deco and the prosperity it represents are most associated with New York City.

Could it be the number of Art Deco buildings in the city? NYC was growing rapidly when Art Deco was at its peak.

Could it be the high profile construction projects of the time?

New technologies, new materials, and increased wealth set the stage for one of the greatest races of the late 1920s — the race for the tallest free-standing building. The Chrysler building (NYC, 1928-1930) was the first man-made structure to exceed the height of the Eiffel Tower. It remained the world’s tallest free-standing building for 11 months until it was surpassed by the Empire State Building (NYC, 1929-1931). Both buildings are Art Deco.

Even during the Depression, Art Deco style buildings continued to be constructed (including the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, above). Rockefeller Center (the only major private construction project underway in New York during the Depression) no longer represented prosperity, but faith. After the stock market crash of 1929, and the subsequent withdrawal of the Metropolitan Opera from the project, Rockefeller persevered and finished construction of the original 14-building, Art Deco, city-within-a-city in 1939.

BUT TYPE IS NOT ARCHITECTURE
Even though Art Deco is a prominent architectural style in NYC, Art Deco type is not. Yes, there is an Art Deco presence, but most of it does not resemble Broadway.

SO WHY DOES BROADWAY = NYC?
Art Deco type is not representative of a single city, but of an ideal. Prosperity, luxury, opulence, quality, technology all coming together in celebration of the end of a World War.

Growing up, I associated Broadway-style lettering with the 1920s. It suggested speed, wealth, and a kind of naughty fun (speakeasies, jazz, flapper dresses). But it also reminded me of Chicago (when you grow up just North of Detroit, Chicago is the Big City). So how did I learn to associate it with New York City?

I have a sneaky suspicion the Macintosh played a role in my personal shift from signified=1920s to signified=NYC. My Junior year in college, we started to use computers as design tools. And, while I can’t prove it, I think Broadway was part of an inexpensive font package loaded onto the computers. (My main graphic design teacher studied at Basel. We only used Helvetica Neue. No other font was ever needed… but we had Broadway.)

The remember the first time I tested all the forbidden fonts. I remember thinking: this is the typeface of New York City. I don’t know for sure if I was influenced by the forms of the letters or by the name of the font.

But I think it was the latter.