Autumn 2007

The riddle of the spine

Letter from John Hubbard

Just a quick note of praise for the new issue of Eye. I just spent three days attending The Society of Typographic Aficionados 2007 conference, fortunately held in Seattle, so to go to the newsstand and find that issue 64 of Eye is a Typography issue is, well . . . great!

I am curious to know what happened on the spine. Every issue I have been able to find has a small amount of text (just after the word ‘Summer’) blacked out with a marker.

Seattle

The editor replies: ‘There’s no getting around it – the spine of the Summer issue contained a literal; a Helvetica Rounded Bold ‘6’ where there should have been a ‘7’. Otherwise known as an error, a typo, disinformation, mistake, porkie pie or the destabilising introduction of ambiguity into a formerly sacrosanct world of accuracy and reliability. Though I guess nobody would set their alarm clock by Eye. Subscribers will have seen this horror for themselves, but newsstand buyers were protected by the speedy application of a black marker pen, thus creating the special, limited-edition version of Eye 64 described by John Hubbard. Apologies.’

First published in Eye no. 65 vol.17 2007

EYE65

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It is available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions and back issues. You can also browse visual samples of recent issues at Eye before You Buy.