Can anyone remember Letraset and other dry-transfer type? A few years ago, I threw away hundreds of sheets of it, which I now regret. Younger designers might find this type of lettering funny, perhaps even informative. Technology has, after all, always influenced design, if not defined it.
Friends in The Hague gave me a few sheets of transfer type featuring LoType, which I had never seen before. The manufacturer obviously didn’t have a license contract with me, or they might have spelled my name right.
Funyn stuff. I love these Letraset sheets and I’ve been meaning to collect a bunch of them. I found a Lubalin Graph set in Europe that I have to buy. Ebay is usually loaded with these as well.
Nice to see you back. Don’t take it as an offence, please, but I have always wondered why so many designers make text on their web page so small that it is really difficult to read.
Same story in your page again. It actually hurts my eyes to read body text, honest. Why?
@Sven –
There’s a FireFox extension called nosquint – It saves your font size preferences per site. After reading your comment, I had a glance at the info bar at the bottom of my FireFox window, and low and behold – I read spiekermann.com at 110%.
Ctrl+ Sven.
Ah, Letraset. Reminds me of wandering around Ryman (big stationery store) when I was young, checking out all the typesets and graphic pens. Shortly after that, I discovered computers…
@James: Ctrl + Sven? But I don’t have a Sven key ;-)
ahahahha
Flattery may come in the most unusual ways.
Here in southamerica we take each others eyes for a couple of lestrasets. Yesterday i saw a designer stab another with an old rotring for a sheet of Stempel Garamond.
Threw it away?! I love Letraset, and I am almost out of it. It is great for collages! When I lived in Providence, RI, I had an inexpensive and deep supply of it from a dieing art supply store that had been stuck in a basement downtown. Basically, if I could find something worth buying down there I could almost name my price. He had drawers and drawers of Letraset! Oh to be back there today…
i know about zoom feature, i use firefox 3 beta, which even does full page zoom. but that makes images blurry and raises the issue even more: why not make text legible in the first place!?
reading from comments it seems that there are other people with same problem as well.
If the type is too small, on a Mac you type Apple+ to increase point size. There is no proper way to achieve the same size across platforms and screens in the design of a website. The better the screen, the smaller the pixels. 9 pt on a new MacBookAir looks tiny but sharp, while on an old PC could be massive and blurry.
“9 pt on a new MacBookAir looks tiny but sharp,
while on an old PC could be massive and blurry”
Agreed, but i think major sites have scripts running which detect your screen resolution and are capable of loading a seperate website design for a particular screen.
i think ;)
As I don’t have any vision problems, I can read it fine. I like small text in websites, as well in other supports, because it normally makes the text spot more uniform and fitting to the composition. If I ever have a problem with reading it, I use apple+ to increase text size and WILL NOT bug the designer with it.
It’s funny, it’s always the generation who have managed to wrestle free from some obsolete technology who then discard its remnants with pleasure and relief. A few cling on out of nostalgia, and then the next generation (who maybe only toyed with it as children) cherishes it for its very specific qualities.
It was like that with Volkswagens, Commodore 64’s, typewriters, vinyl records, formica, and i feel it’s starting to emerge for audio and VHS cassettes. My advice: never throw anything away ;-)
Hello i was wondering if antbody could give me some advice, i have two wooden letter-press design system storage cases 18 drawers each full of old Letraset
that i aquired about 10 years ago does anybody know the best place or way to sell these as ive no need for them but could imagine there must be collectors somewhere
thanks