Speedball

Hello.

My name is Skip.

And I’m a crap-aholic.

I keep junk.

Which is a step above being a hoarder because, well, I’m discriminating in what I hoard collect.

Amongst the dusty shelves, boxes, drawers, closets, and open spaces beneath my mattress, I keep stuff I like to look at. (And no—because I know some of you are thinking this—the stuff I like to look at isn’t weird or nasty. Mostly.) I like stuff that’s visually interesting, stuff that shows me how to see. This works out because I’ve made a career of making stuff to look at.

Some of what I have in boxes and on shelves are a few of the things that first taught me how to make things to see. Like this really cool 1941 version of the Speedball Text Book. Speedball was—and continues to be—a manufacturer of calligraphy and ink pen drawing tools. From time to time, they published these little how-to booklets to encourage sale of their products. I used to spend hours copying various lettering exercises. Thus began my lifelong love of typography and lettering and (ahem!) signs. Turns out, these little manuals are a pretty good introductory course to graphic design, or, as they called it in the olden days, “commercial art”.

And, since this particular edition of the Speedball Text Book was put out way before I was born (way!), it has some great vintage art within!

Enjoy!