04 Feb 2010, Written by Cat Johnson in design

Life In The Lowercase

I was in the back room of a dusty shop, looking for interesting matchbook covers when I spotted the shallow, wooden box filled with tiny, metal blocks. My mind leapt with joy at the realization that it was a tray of lowercase letters from a printing press. Finally, after years of long distance infatuation, I was meeting, face to face, the grandmother of my obsession.

My love affair with letters goes back as far as my mind does. Remember the cool perfection of the carved ABC blocks? And the frustration that there was only one of each? Twenty six letters is just not enough for any serious wordsmith.

A few years later when I discovered comic strips, the thing that captured my attention was the uniformity of the letters. It was amazing to me that each artist had developed a style that was uniquely and consistently their own. Comic book letterers are still a great source of inspiration. The notion that the entirety of one’s job is to draw letters is truly breath-taking.

During my junior high years, my shoes, books, jeans, binders and whatever else I had lying around were covered with words. I wrote band names, my name, my friends’ names and important declarations all over everything. This is a long-running rite of passage as Chuck Taylors and binders everywhere are still covered in young adult angst and individuality and presumably always will be, but the thing that set me apart from my peers was sheer numbers. They would write Thompson Twins on their binder then move on. I would write Thompson Twins then I would write it fifteen more times, in fifteen different styles until it had just the right feel. A bit OCD? Fair enough. But, I prefer to think of it as the work of a budding type enthusiast.

As I grew into adulthood I did, for the most part, stop writing on my clothes—but only because I had discovered the perfect companionship of a sketchbook. The model I buy is small enough to fit into my purse but big enough to let me stretch out in. If you were to look at all my sketchbooks from all the years, you would see lettering. You’d stumble over some rants, some not-very-good drawings and some notes-to-self, but you’d pretty much be looking at a lot of letters. I’ve inadvertently created several typefaces just by searching for my own perfect style. In fact, I’m a bit skeptical about the whole handwriting analysis thing because I can pull out a bunch of writing styles that are all my own. This alone probably provides ample material for analysis, but that’s for another time.

It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I had the (second) great coming out of my life. I was sitting in Digital Media 1, hoping to pick up some Photoshop skills when the instructor introduced a topic that changed my life forever; she started talking about typefaces and how each one has a distinct personality, how there is a perfect use for each face and (here’s where it got really good) that there are people who have devoted their entire lives to the study and creation of type.

“What did she just say?” My heart started racing. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. Was I sweating? Could my classmates tell? “That’s me!” I was screaming inside. “There’s a name for me! These are my people! How could I not have known?” It was a personal breakthrough of big-bang proportions that set my creative universe into motion.

I latched onto typography and read everything I could get my hands on, taking a particular interest in the history of printing. Did you know that before the printing press was created, monks would copy bibles by hand? That’s a bit much even for me. What happened if you screwed up a letter on a page that took you 3 days to create? I hate to think of it. Did you also know that setting type requires that you place the letters upside down and backwards? You create a mirror image that becomes righted on the printed page. It’s an amazing field with a rich history of men and women working these tiny, metal letters with grace, speed and accuracy.

And with that image, dear reader, we’ve circled back to the sweet thrill of finding a tray of lowercase letters and yes, that is where the terms uppercase and lowercase come from. With time-bending focus, I crouched over the letters and began picking them up one by one. For the very first time, I was able to handle and feel the dense little cubes of expression that I had so completely fallen for, with their dings and ink stains, scratches and ghosts.

I worked my way through the box, marveling at their size and the amount of work it would take to fill a page with them. There were a lot of letters missing and I wondered if they had been lost, or pieced off to existing sets, or bought one by one for the three dollars the shop owner was asking. It’s kind of sad to think of breaking up a set of letters because once you do, you’ve created the same problem you had with the ABC blocks – you don’t have all the letters you need; but, as I stood up, something caught my eye; sitting on the floor was an uppercase C and it was staring right at me. It was the only uppercase letter in the whole bunch and I knew with certainty, in the same way that you know which kitten is yours, that that C was there for me.

I gave a reverential nod to the tray of letters, handed the shop owner my three dollars, slid the C into the front pocket of my jeans and walked into the light, basking in the glow of my beloved type.

Photo by Flickr user moirabot

Cat Johnson is the publisher of House of Cat, a music, art and culture blog. She also contributes to several websites and publications including the Santa Cruz Weekly, JamBase, Streetlight Records and Is Greater Than. She is currently planning the takeover of her own life.

View all articles by Cat Johnson.

Tags: A Fine Line