Modern Show Card Lettering, Designs, Etc.
A self-teaching manual for retail show card writers by W. A. Thompson of the Thompson School of Lettering in Pontiac, Michigan.
What it is
A self-teaching manual for retail show card writers by W. A. Thompson of the Thompson School of Lettering in Pontiac, Michigan. It runs as numbered lessons. The first cover marking pens and automatic shading pens, making ink from ink powder and gum arabic, practice paper, pen care and the 45-degree pen angle. Later lessons move to the brush: how to hold it, show card paints, figures, script and full alphabets, with advice on spacing, card sizes, borders, color mixing, and pasting pictures cut from trade journals onto cards. About forty pages then list "2000 Advertising Phrases for Show Cards, Posters, etc.", from "A Sale Today and a Friend Tomorrow" to "A square Deal for a Round Dollar". The back pages sell the school's $10 course by mail, pen and paint outfits, letter patterns and leaflets, and pitch lettering as a way for clerks to raise their pay.
Why read it now
Most of the book teaches a craft that software now does, so read it for its rules about signs, not for pen technique. Those rules hold up: the fewer the words on a card the better; a plain letter beats a fancy one because the public reads it faster; use one color until the work is good; never change color inside a word; keep one style of ornament per card. Point-of-purchase eye-tracking studies (Chandon and colleagues, 2009) show shoppers notice only part of a shelf and look briefly, so short copy in a plain, high-contrast face has the better chance. The 2,000 phrases are the weak part. Most are puns and general claims ("A Business Maker", "Attractions Abundant") that name no product and give no reason, the kind of copy later reason-why advertisers attacked. A few still work as starting points for sale and seasonal signs. To use it, check any in-store sign, shelf talker or menu board against the book's rules before printing: fewest words, one plain face, one color for the message, dark on light, and read it from across the room.
Passages worth keeping
In beginning, a plain letter well made is far superior to a fancy letter poorly done.
الحرف البسيط المتقن أنفع من المزخرف الرديء، فابدأ بالبساطة قبل الزينة.
Simple forms are not only more easily and rapidly executed, but they are more easily read by the general public than ornate styles; in fact lettering that takes the most time is worth the least from a business point of view
الأشكال البسيطة أسرع تنفيذًا وأسهل قراءة، والخط الذي يستهلك أطول وقت هو الأقل قيمة من الناحية التجارية.
There is no other advertising as cheap, and at the same time as effective as Show Cards.
يرى المؤلف أن بطاقة العرض داخل المتجر أرخص وسائل الإعلان وأكثرها أثرًا في لفت النظر إلى البضاعة.
The fewer the words on a show card the better it will be as a rule.
القاعدة العامة أن البطاقة كلما قلّت كلماتها كانت أقوى وأوضح.
Follow the rule, "What is done to one part of a letter should be done to the corresponding parts of all the letters in the line."
الاتساق شرط الجودة، فأي زخرفة تضعها على جزء من حرف يجب أن تتكرر على الأجزاء المقابلة في كل حروف السطر.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
Read the original archive.org
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