The Golden Age of Type Design: Origins

The Panthenon in Rome with its impeccable frieze of capital letters identifying the emperor Agrippa who built the first one. This is the second Pantheon, built by Hadrian in A.D. 125 and dedicated to Agrippa.

Classic Roman letters from marble slabs seen in the Roman Forum in 1955.

Example of letterpress printing found in the Swiss publication Typografie published circa 1950. I sold my copy on eBay several years ago but not before photographing this and the following examples on Kodachrome. Didy was/is a flower shop in Lucerne.

Edler was a schmuck? No, schmuck is German for jeweler.

Bottle label for Swiss kirschwasser, distilled from cherries, and drunk as a digestive and with cheese fondue throughout Switzerland. I particularly love it on a ripe fruit Macedonia and on ice cream. But I digress. . .

Swiss burghers as I saw them at meal times in Switzerland staring as they so often did at a young American couple and wondering what they were doing eating in the same restaurants as they.

But I was young and given to playing with my food, I guess.