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ARB 93 Steel Moderne Font

Designers: Alf Becker, Michael Adkins
Publisher: The Fontry

ARB 93 Steel Moderne was developed by Alf Becker, Michael Adkins and released by The Fontry. ARB 93 Steel Moderne consists of 32 designs and household plan options. p > Want a genuine Western font style? From method back when? For an old-timey feel? Heck, pardner, those ain't big old slab serifs yer lookin' at. Those are 'bars', as in bars of steel. They might be a little rusty, though, having actually been around given that 1939. That's when these branding-iron prepared letterforms first graced the pages of ST Publications' SIGNS of the Times publication. This was the 93rd type treatment by master sign painter, Alf R. Becker. And while he had hoped the sign guys would soften things up a bit by blunting the edges of all that steel, many have actually been left sharp and cut-ready. So view your fingers! And watch likewise for the Narrowe variation of Moderne Steel. It's been pre-condensed to avoid those awkward stretch marks that arise from a poorly distorted design. And obviously we did go ahead and blunt the edges a bit, so you wouldn't hurt yourself. That's why this one Becker font style household maxes out at 32 tastes. That's a great deal of bolding and blunting and italicizing going on there!

Beginning in January, 1932, Alf R. Becker of St. Louis Missouri, at the request of then-editor E. Thomas Kelly, provided 'INDICATIONS of the Times' magazine's brand-new Art and Style section with an alphabet a month, a task initially anticipated to last only two years. Misjudging the popularity of the 'series,' it instead ran for 27 years, ending lastly 2 months prior to Becker's death in 1959, for a grand total of 320 alphabets, a nearly ideal, undisturbed run. In late 1941, just 10 years after the first alphabet was published, 100 of those alphabets were assembled and published in book form under the title, 100 Alphabets, by Alf R. Becker.

As published in September, 1939, this is the description that accompanied Becker's 93rd alphabet, Steel Moderne:

Steel Moderne is Alf R. Becker's ninety-third alphabet in his almost-8-year-old series of alphabet art in INDICATIONS of the Times. This style can be utilized successfully in all lines of modern indication work. Leading and bottom bars are extra heavy, with vertical lines half the thickness of the bars, and all edges are blunt.