On the straight and narrow

Last weekend I made my way with Melissa across the state to Letterpress Things in Chicopee. She recently got her hands on a 5x8 Kelsey and was eager to pick up the rest of the essentials she'd need for printing. I was in desperate straits for some cutting rule as I had a job with 1500 slits to cut, and was not looking forward to doing it by hand. Not when I have a perfectly good press to use...



The day was a total success. Not only did we find everything we were looking for (including a cabinet for her press to go on) but I scored some super fonts as well - including this nearly complete 72 pt Helvetica! (it's only missing the capital N and the number 2, but has a complete lowercase contingent).

Eager to put it into use, I had just the project up my sleeve - a new commission for a poster for the Dudley Chorus spring performance. As I have complete creative freedom with this job, in the past (and past) I'd used it as an opportunity to play with wood type (makes sense, big letters for a poster). Well, what better use for 72 pt Helvetica instead ?!



That decision combined with the inspiration to use the paper strip off-cuts from an invitation job resulted in this elegant yet totally modern long and narrow poster - just like the font!



So delicious.



And I'm embarrassed to admit that even though I own the movie Helvetica, I have yet to watch it. No excuse now.