January 8, 2025
Patently Typographic
Sometimes you find great inspiration in the unlikeliest of places. Recently, I’ve been trawling through old patents (as evidenced by some of my posts) and picked up on an interesting trend of really expressive hand-drawn numbers and letters accompanying the drawings (“Fig. 5”).
In the above image, drawn from over 4 decades (1920s through the 1960s) of patents, I found a wide range of unique numerals and “Figs.” It’s unbelievable that time was taken out by each patent artist (likely a hired, unnamed third party) to draw these flourished, elegant numerals on a document that was merely going to be filed away by the government, unlikely to ever be seen by anyone that could appreciate it.
From a typographic standpoint, it is a great source of usable, copyright-free type, and a hugely valuable source of insight into typical typographic styles of an era.
I’ve begun tracing some of the type and numbers, as I think it could be a great resource in the future. You can download the illustrator files by clicking on the images below.
Why would these patent artists bother creating such fantastic type?
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