Index Card Passport

In green ink on an index card

From The New Yorker Oct 6, 2003 p. 31

in the Auctions and Antiques section

Art Deco

posters of Paul Colin, whose works appear as part of a show of French Art Deco posters from the collection of Jean Chassaing, spanning the years 1925 to 1932. The machine-driven energy of the age is the theme of posters by the great A.M. Cassandre; his theory that "travel is a geometric experience" is demonstrated in striking illustrations of trains, steamships, and (in an advertisement for "Cycles Brillant") a cyclist merging with his bicycle.

Loved his take on ingesting and becoming in the Dubonnet poster: the character becomes more colourful as he imbibes more ... dubo dubon dubonnet.

Sad to learn that in his final years he suffered from severe depression and killed himself in 1968. But the same biographical note that conveyed that fact also identified him as a designer of type.

I snuck over to the Linotype site and in a moment of narcissism test ran the font Cassandre designed: Peignot Light. Truly calligraphic in its play between "L" and "h" so like handwriting ... I was intrigued not so much by a narcissistic lapse but because the default text presented upon accessing the site is the name of the font itself with it so ever elegant H. A remarkable display font. Whatever colour the ink.

And so for day 1200
27.03.2010