Two posts in the same month! That is something, at least.
I was looking at this page of amazing designs by Luigi Colani. The kind of page which makes you want to blog it, too. And then thought, shit, my blog has been untouched for too long. Apologies — I transferred jobs and things have been... different lately!
Full service should resume soon. Or what passes for full service here these days.
A family friend was clearing out a drawer and found that her mother (deceased when very old a few years ago) had stored a roll of chamois leather away. It was wrapped in some newspaper — this one.
There are many more pages, and closeups, to look at if you click the photo and then the photostream. There are advertisements for Guinness and Lux Toilet Soap. There are wonderful examples of typeface design and typesetting. There are all the telltale signs of old newspapers — a rubber-stamped masthead logo here, a rubber-stamped news item there, no colour, a hell of a lot more news, and some superb writing.
The date of the paper is October 17, 1943, a time when the Allies were moving up Italy as the Nazis, having rescued the deposed Mussolini, had taken temporary control and then been forced to retreat. There is a driven, enthusiastic tone to the main reporting, and this comes from the now abandoned style whereby fact and open speculation are frankly mixed into a single news story. It also, of course, comes from the need for propaganda.
