Typo 3 is now available! For the third issue of this inimitable publication, I contributed a parody of Oscar Wilde (“Bosie’s Translation”), an article on the design of single-serve salt packets, a design for a Hawaiian Ouija board, and a translation of a letter by Aloysius Bertrand, as well as examples from my collection of […]

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Strings for musical instruments are sold in stores, but not marketed as aggressively as other products. The packaging is relatively unimportant, and the graphic design tends to the generic. Here are some examples of these delightfully liminal designs: packets containing strings for ukulele, banjo ukulele, tenor banjo, cuatro, cavaquinho, and guzheng. (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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I found this stack of booklets recently; the first seven were published by the Trail Blazers’ Publishing Co., and the last two by W. H. Harper. I assume the two companies were the same. All are from 1943. I found very little about them online, except that there was also a “Trail Blazers Almanac” for […]

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When I travel, my favorite souvenirs are the small, overlooked items, particularly those sporting liminal, anonymous graphics.  Here, for example, are some of the salt packets I collected on a trip to Buenos Aires last year.  I particularly like the first.  It’s Attic salt! (Posted by Doug Skinner)  

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Spring is here.  It’s been a particularly harsh winter here in NYC.  I hope that this magic lantern panorama slide heralds better times. (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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“Madame Le Normand’s Gipsy Fortune Telling Cards” bears no indication of date or publisher.  Its previous owner has written the meaning of the cards over the simple black and white illustrations, thereby increasing its graphic charm.  There are 36 cards in the deck, from #1: Cavalier to #36: Cross; tattered instructions in English and German […]

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Whitman’s “Zodiac Circle Playing Card Game” dates from 1931.  There were Zodiac Cards, which were to be laid out in a circle, and the other cards were to be correlated to your sun sign.  I haven’t tried it.  I like those colors. (Posted by Doug Skinner.)  

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“The Military Fortune Tellers” was published by H. V. Loring, in Chicago, in 1917.  The deck is 52 cards; but the four suits are stars, hearts, bells, and doves, and the face cards are Jack, Nurse, and Soldier.  The instructions are curiously garbled: “This is a Military Sectional Fortune Telling Chart forming a square when […]

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Well, I’ve given you 200 children’s card games to eyeball, so now it’s time for a change.  Here’s the first of a series of fortune telling cards. You can, of course, tell fortunes with ordinary playing cards, or with the tarot (or, it must be said, simply by free association); but card manufacturers have nevertheless […]

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Today is Shakespeare’s birthday, maybe; the exact date is uncertain.  But it’s a good uncertain date to appreciate that Stratfordian ullage, Shakespeare’s apocrypha. Although the canonical plays have long inspired artists, the apocrypha have been largely unillustrated.  Many of them are perfectly fine plays, but suffer that curious stigma of being once ascribed but now […]

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