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 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). See also Loose Caboose NF (Nick Curtis, 2007) and Dogsmoke (Humberto Gillan, 2019).
