As a result, in 1960, PLINC published an Alphabet Thesaurus featuring thousands of styles.
Headlines and logos that looked handlettered became all the rage. The easy production process (compared to metal type) meant that a photo-lettering foundry didn't have to worry as much about the commercial viability of any particular alphabet, and this in turn gave letterers a degree of creative freedom. They soon accumulated a vast library of alphabets, as quickly as lettering artists could turn them out.
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Founded in 1936, PLINC took full advantage of the advanced Rutherford photo-lettering machine and its operators, who were often expert letterers themselves. Variations in size, shape and position for any character within a word or line was now easy. Photographically-set type was developed for commercial purposes in America in the late 1920s and it freed typesetters from many constraints inherent in hot metal. "So, Chris Gardner drew Ed in various get-ups for the catalog, each thematically related to a different font in the set." In addition to Ed as beatnik artist and drummer, a caricature of the collaborators shows Ed and Ken arm in arm. "Ed is such a lively character and we thought it was imperative to somehow get that across in the advertisements and other collateral material for the collection," said Ken Barber. Now in his seventies, he teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York and still works, with clients like Estee Lauder and NASA.
While at PLINC, he drew thousands of alphabets and typefaces including Souvenir, Bookman and, of course, Benguiat. He designed logotypes for publications like Esquire and the New York Times and for movies like Superfly and The Guns of Navarrone. He eventually became typographic design director at Photo-Lettering, affectionately known as PLINC. But he quickly found success as a lettering artist and designer, working alongside all the luminaries of Madison Avenue in the '50s.
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"I'd do a jazz gig, come home, work on some lettering, and give the bottle to the baby!" When he got his degree, he traded in his "peg pants for a Brooks Brothers suit" and found work as a photo retoucher, appeasing the Hays Code prudery by air-brushing the racier photos found in confession mags like Photoplay and True Story. He played in bands with Woody Herman and Stan Kenton and hung out on 52nd street with cats like Tiny Grimes and Don Byas. After serving in WWII, he knocked around New York City supporting his young family as a jazz drummer by night while going to art school by day. His early career has as many curlicues as a swash cap. These fonts make ingenious use of OpenType technology and one of them, Ed Interlock, is truly a "smart" font, capable of automatically making the sort of visual decisions originally made on-the-fly by the typesetter or letterer.īenguiat was one of the most prolific lettering artists of the day. They've just released the Ed Benguiat Font Collection: five fonts based on lettering alphabets created in the 1950s and '6os by Art Directors Club Hall-of-Famer Ed Benguiat for Photo-Lettering, Inc. He also lectures and exhibits internationally.Ah, House Industries, that typographic hothouse! The Delaware-based independent type foundry is known for their inventive typefaces, creative packaging, and often fictitious backstories (tales of nonexistent Swiss designers and portly sign painters). An avid pilot with his own personal plane, he currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York. His work has won him acclaim, including a gold medal from the New York Type Directors Club and the prestigious Fredric W. He is also credited with playing an important role in the establishment of ITC. And he is a prolific typeface designer, with over 600 typefaces to his credit, including ITC Tiffany, ITC Bookman, ITC Panache, and the eponymous ITC Benguiat, as well as logotypes for The New York Times, Playboy, and Sports Illustrated.
He enrolled at the Workshop School of Advertising Art, training as an illustrator.Īfter his studies, he changed tack, working as a graphic designer and art director. However, acknowledging that a music career could see him still playing at bar mitzvahs as an old man, he used the GI bill to go to college. Before the Second World War, he had a promising career as a jazz percussionist, and he picked this up again after serving with the Air Corp - which he joined with the aid of a forged birth certificate - during the war. Born Ephram Edward Benguiat in 1927, he grew up in Brooklyn, New York, playing with his father's drawing materials.