Two Finds at the Wayzgoose

I think in all of my past mentions of the Wayzgoose at Hamilton, I may never have said exactly what a wayzgoose is. This time around I noticed there's a broadside posted at the museum that helps me answer that question:

(Click to enlarge for better readability.)

While at this years ’goose I learned a few facts I never knew. One short fact came in a presentation about "strike-on" type. 

Strike-on is any kind of type that involves metal hitting paper to make a positive image that's later pasted up to use in final reproduction (usually in offset lithography). Typewriters are considered strike-on, and in the 20th century there were also fancy typewriters — sometimes called compositors — that had variable-width characters for better spacing than on a typewriter. They could also set justified text:

In the presentation on this topic, I learned something about a famous 1948 newspaper front page:

We all know the headline, but check out the text below the headlines:

Yes, the text in those columns is not typeset with hot metal type, as was the usual practice at the time: it was done with strike-on cold type. I never noticed that!

Another presentation over the weekend covered a topic that was completely new to me: it highlighted the work of illustrator Joseph Low.

Craig Welsh of the Pennsylvania design firm Go Welsh became fascinated with Low's work and began collecting it, such as these inserts from Women's Day magazine, which appeared for years...or decades:

He connected with Low's daughter Damaris and talked with her. He arranged for her to attend the Wayzgoose at Hamilton and they tag-teamed the presentation. It was super-cool.

Clearly, Low was part of what I call cartoon modern. Given the dates of his work (like this New Yorker cover from 1940*), he was one of the earlier influences:

Low's Wikipedia page is barely more than a stub. This 2007 obituary from the Martha's Vineyard newspaper is pretty thorough. The New York Times obit, written by Steven Heller (the writer of all the design history articles, it seems) is paywalled but a friendly reader sent me a gift link (thanks!).

Welsh plans to do something — most likely a book — about Low and his work, in cooperation with Damaris. I look forward to it!

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* I can't help noticing the visual connection between Low's 1940 New Yorker cover and Virginia Lee Burton's illustrations for the The Little House (published in 1942), especially the rendering of the trees. (Her Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel had come out in 1939.) Art is an environment and they were both in it.