Publisher: Laura WorthingtonNumber Five is pure Americana, suitable for titling, display, logo design, signs, and editorial work. Its two variations, Smooth and Rough, are constructed similarly, yet imbued with unique sensations and uses.
The 1940s and 1950s in America have actually taken on a mythology of their own, envisioned by some as an idyllic time when the every day life, dreams, and sensibilities of a country were stable, solid, unvarying. Yet this was when the exact same moms who sewed their children's names onto collars for summer camp utilizing needle and thread and who selected berries at roadside fruit stands to lay up ruby and purple jams for the winter, also read books about clinical parenting, squeezed high-end appliances out of slim budget plans, and imagined Jetson homes.
What we now treasure as "retro" was a time of powerful change, as the extraordinary beauty of the handcrafted previous slipped gradually towards the outmoded, and as a nation we ended up being agitated for a produced perfection. How perfect, undoubtedly, that we 'd quickly be enjoying as one while one of our own stepped onto the surface of the moon.
Number 5 captures the minutes prior to we moved into our Brave New World. The letters are subtly retro and just hardly distressed, and are evocative of Betty Crocker cookbooks used by ladies in high heels and crisp aprons, indications painted on old barns along the highway, and sluggish summertime days with Joltin' Joe Dimaggio (and his number 5 jersey) at bat. This was a time when modern-day machine-made was adored, yet handmade was the norm, and the practical hand-drawn still had a beauty all its own, whether or not we might still recognize it.
My motivation in designing Number 5 (which was called not for Joe however for my own jersey, my preferred number since youth, my lucky beauty), was to catch this time of Jim Beam, plaid Bermuda shorts, laundromat signs, and hometown storefronts beckoning with newly painted indication painter's scripts. The human spirit still ruled in what we made, back in nowadays when Main Street, not Big Box shops, dominated-- and even when the edges of our goods were rough, the work spoke of heat and a practiced hand.
The lettering is bold and dark, stunning however not specifically feminine or even sophisticated, a casual down-to-earth script. Like much of my font styles, the letters grew organically, possibly triggered by seeing an old film or remembering the cheers when I was a kickass Little League pitcher. I utilized pencil to build them, then scanned and finessed them on the computer. Constructed faces are carefully crafted and requiring, they don't stream naturally from the pen or brush. Yet, developing the letters was effort that came easily compared to others I've made; I drew the lays out on a single sheet of paper, which is unusual for me; possibly the letters had a strong American identity running through them from the start and I simply followed them to conclusion. I intuited the direction I was headed: unpretentious, friendly, unusually familiar-- as "retro" must be.
The two variations are kissin' cousins, providing themselves to different functions and kindling a various feeling, as comparable as they seem initially look. Smooth is the slick variation; I think about a pale, crisp, tidy lager. Rough is the nut brown ale, or, taking it back in time, the neighborbood's hardware store indication, at the center of town.
TECHNICAL:
Number 5 has 433 alternates, consisting of a set of inapplicable letters (the default set is all a connected script), and ten ornaments.
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