The Architect & The Industrial Arts exhibition poster
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Architect & The Industrial Arts, 11th Exhibition of Contemporary American Design, February 12 to March 24 [1929]
This poster was designed in 1928 [Met]. Futura had first come onto the market merely a year before, in late 1927. Unsurprisingly, Dwiggins uses capitals only. He found the new European sans serifs like Futura, Kabel or Gill Sans “fine in the capitals and bum in the lower-case”. [Paul Shaw] One year later, in February 1929, Mergenthaler Linotype commissioned Dwiggins to design a better sans serif, as a competitor to Futura & Co. This was to become Metro, his first typeface design.
The image is taken from the recommendable @WADwiggins Twitter stream about “America’s Master Graphic Designer, Artist, and Wit”, edited by Bruce Kennett as a teaser for an upcoming illustrated biography by Letterform Archive.
