Ah….to be a young graphic designer sitting
in the design studios at the Poly, leafing through a copy of the latest design
inspiration in paper format – the internet was just a twinkle in Sir Tim
Berners-Lee’s eye.
Apart from Creative Review, one of the most
collectable and eagerly thumbed was U&lc, The International Journal of
Typographics, first published in 1974.
It was art directed for ITC by renowned
design guru Herb Lubalin and was both trend setting and award winning over it’s
26 year run.
U&lc was a greyscale (mainly) large
format tabloid and was released quarterly to a typography hungry design
community
The modest 24-page first issue declared:
“U&lc will provide a panoramic window, a showcase for the world of graphic arts
– a clearing house for the international exchange of ideas and information.”
Now those friendly folk at blog.fonts.com
are re-releasing the magazine.
“Every month, we will make one volume (a
year’s worth of publications) available through the Fonts.com blog. There are,
however, a couple of caveats. First, the files are big – as in “way big.” The
low-resolution files can be as big as 18 MB and the high-resolution files are
downright huge at over 85 MB in some cases. Second, they are not perfect. The original
documents were sometimes faded, cracked or torn. That combined with a
semi-automated scanning process (over 9,000 pages scanned) resulted in some
unavoidable “character” traits. The final caveat is that the above plan could
change depending on audience interest level (or lack thereof). So, if you love
it, let us know.”
So get downloading for a retro treat! And
if you see the tutors a bit misty eyed you know they’ve being doing likewise…
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