Developed from a single letter ‘a’
drawn for Artone Ink at Push Pin Studios in 1964, hence often
also referred to as Chwast Artone. Expanded into a
full alphabet for the client and released by Photo-Lettering in the
same year, [Steven Heller: Design Literacy] but not
yet shown in Alphabet Thesaurus Vol. 2 (1965). Used
in 1966. The One Line catalog (1971) lists
Chwast Art Tone plus 4 variations: Open A (outlined),
Boot Black (enlongated, less contrast), Whitewash
B (Boot Black outlined), Black
Bottom (like Boot Black, but with solid
bottoms, i.e. no white between serifs etc.).
Lettergraphics had a copy as
Chaucer, with a Biform variant. Two related designs are
included in the Solotype catalog: More…
Developed from a single letter ‘a’ drawn for Artone Ink at Push Pin Studios in 1964, hence often also referred to as Chwast Artone. Expanded into a full alphabet for the client and released by Photo-Lettering in the same year, [Steven Heller: Design Literacy] but not yet shown in Alphabet Thesaurus Vol. 2 (1965). Used in 1966. The One Line catalog (1971) lists Chwast Art Tone plus 4 variations: Open A (outlined), Boot Black (enlongated, less contrast), Whitewash B (Boot Black outlined), Black Bottom (like Boot Black, but with solid bottoms, i.e. no white between serifs etc.).
Lettergraphics had a copy as Chaucer, with a Biform variant. Two related designs are included in the Solotype catalog: Inkwell Black, which is close to the original Art Tone, but inferior (the digital freebie Inkwell is not worth a look), and Tulo. Latter is a more direct knock-off of Art Tone Boot Black. It also appears in Phil’s Homage To The Alphabet and Berthold’s E1 catalog, and has been digitized as DXS Tulo (Dick Pape, 2010).
