typographique: November 2007 Archives

"I have been fortunate to witness several great moments in graphic design history, but none more overdue than the day The New York Times finally dropped the period from its masthead.
    Newspaper mastheads traditionally placed a period after the name, but by 1900 most papers had given up the practice. . . . Meanwhile, the period appeared day after day and week after week consuming ink, I estimate, at the rate of $84 a year.
    It was not until 1966 that the Times concluded there was little to be gained from further procrastination. . . .
    The ailing masthead was brought into our quarters on the appointed day. When the operating table was duly set Ed Benguiat, after honing his trusted scalpel to a fine edge, administered four deft strokes of the blade, severing the period with a minimum of discomfort. . . .
    It was an historic moment. . . . I hope we returned the severed period to the Times as a valuable contribution to its archives."

—Edward Rondthaler, Life with Letters as they Turned Photogenic, 1981.

“The letter M is identified by two independent but generally ascending and more or less symmetric lines joined at or very near their tips by the ends or near-ends of a more or less v-shaped and generally symmetric pair of lines whose crotch or point of convergence does not fall below the imaginary baseline.”

—Edward Rohdthaler, Life with Letters, 1981.

“There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.”

—George Santayana, quoted by Dennis Ford in The Search for Meaning: A Short History, 2007.