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H-Bomb: A Frank Lloyd Wright typographic mystery

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Re: H-Bomb: A Frank Lloyd Wright typographic mystery

#12

Post by readthenotes1 »

vessenes wrote: post #6

For the love of all this is holy, do not read this article. If the internet has taught has anything, it's that you cannot unsee an image - I predict you will not be able to unsee upside-down H's (and even an S) post-reading. Save yourself.

It reminded me of PG wodehouse's characters who would study newts. The British Gentry had nothing better to do with their time

Re: H-Bomb: A Frank Lloyd Wright typographic mystery

#14

Post by Cerium »

parpfish wrote: post #13

Im curious if the mounting points for the letters had 180deg rotational symmetry. If they didn’t (such as a mount point on the crossbar in the H), that’d go a long way to explaining “correctness”.

The second image in the article clearly shows screw holes in the letters. The H appears to be perfectly symmetric for 180 degree mounting.

Re: H-Bomb: A Frank Lloyd Wright typographic mystery

#15

Post by lioeters »

WillAdams wrote: post #9
vessenes wrote: post #6

For the love of all this is holy, do not read this article. If the internet has taught has anything, it's that you cannot unsee an image - I predict you will not be able to unsee upside-down H's (and even an S) post-reading. Save yourself.

ob. XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1015/

[flagged]

Re: H-Bomb: A Frank Lloyd Wright typographic mystery

#16

Post by tptacek »

greggsy wrote: post #11

I was initially interested but after skimming through I questioned if this pedantic detective tale needed to be told… Just send an email to the board of trustees / body corporate and move on.

Please don't. We'll spend $500,000 tracking down what happened.

Re: H-Bomb: A Frank Lloyd Wright typographic mystery

#17

Post by saghm »

brudgers wrote: post #5
mjg59 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article makes clear that the orientation of the lettering has changed over time, which counts against the idea that what it is now necessarily reflects the original intent.

Fair enough. To me the evidence in the article still suggests that “hard correctness” is probably not historically appropriate…hand lettering is not a typeface. That’s really where I am coming from — the perspective of historical architecture, historical architectural practice, and historical methods of delivering buildings. In particular, today’s mythological Wright is not the 1908’s historical Wright on a commercia…

And yet the article shows the original sketches Wright made for the building that show the asymmetrical H's with the bars aligned with the bars on the E's (i.e on the upper half) in virtually identical font to what was eventually installed.

I don't really see how you can come away with the conclusion that this suggests lack of intent; at most, it seems like you had already formed the opinion that there was no intent, and you didn't find the evidence to the contrary convincing enough that you were wrong. I don't think your take is necessarily wrong, but I don't think it's fair to characterize the evidence as suggesting what you're saying.

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