Jeckel & Hyde's

Green Ampersand

I assume Union Square Farmer's Market. Sexy Veggies and a nice slab serif. Thanks RAvenBoy!

Lightpersand / Luminasand / Glowpersand

Created in the Upper East Side, NYC.

“Gotta love Target’s $1 glow-stix!”

Pyrates & Privateers

Spotted near Mount Hope, outside of the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire grounds.

Bread & Pastry

Hand tooled serif style on a NYC awning.

YM & YWHA

Classic sans, classic NYC.

Flowers & Antiques

Carved and gilded, another NYC find.

Punctuation Bands

Spotted during a shopping excursion at Wal-Mart.

A Brew Pub... Plus

Elk Creek Cafe + ale works. Is it a restaurant or is it a pub? Is it an ampersand or is it a plus sign. What is is consistant and consistancy in design is the mark of a good business. They are also consistant in deliverying very tastey brew, delicious vegan options on their menu and a friendly staff.

To answer the burning question about the "+" in the name of the establishment, we asked the proprietor, Tim, how you say the name. He said it is, "Elk Creek Cafe and ale works." So we are glad to count this plus sign as an ampersand found!

McConnell's Country Store in Waterville, PA

A great store along the Pine Creek Rail Trail, just beside the Waterville Tavern.

A nice clear script.

Punch Bar & Grill

At 913 Broadway [between 20th & 21st] in the Flatiron District, this restaurant's theme is based on the British weekly magazine of humour and satire published from 1841 to 1992 and from 1996 to 2002. My best guess is that the typography and crown on the awning is based on handcrafted art from one of the covers. Quite distinctive, the first ampersand of Spring was spotted with trueindigo and asrai!

B.W.P.G. & Son Shirts

It was a nice sunny Saturday, so we decided on a little road trip. The hand-painted ghost sign of the B.W.P.G. & Son Shirts factory along Route 322 in Millerstown was a great place for a short break.

via MillerstownPA.com

“The dress factory located on West Main Street was built in 1912 by Banks W. Page and son Charles C. Page. This is a 40 x 120 foot well constructed, three story, brick structure. Prior to the erection of this building Banks Page operated a shirt factory from 1904 to 1912 at the corner of High Street and Poplar Alley. He had forty employees on his payroll. His son Charles became a partner in 1910 and they continued to manufacture men’s shirts. Four years after moving to the larger factory Banks Page retired from the partnership. The industry was sold in 1919 to the Phillips-Jones Corporation of New York City. In 1968 it became a dress factory and dresses were made under the ownership of Lyon Fashions. Following the closing of the dress factory, the building soon became the Stitch in Time, a successful antiques and gift mall with over 75 vendors.”

Learn more about Millertown’s past here. Nothing to do with ampersands, but it was interesting reading about the river slide at Glen Adams Park.

Floral!

From Arron in NYC. A lovely floral twist!

The Lintotype Comet

We had a successful letterboxing adventure in Clearfield yesterday, after which Terri surprised me with a sweet little cafe and coffeeshop she found that had vegetarian selections. I heard that the local newspaper had an old Linotype machine in their front window, and we discovered from our waitress that it was located just around the corner from where we were eating. Seeing the machine brought back memories of the early 1980’s and watching a similar one in operation next door to where I worked in Lewistown. A 50ish year old pressman sitting in a darkened dusty room, his fingers flying on the keyboard, creating shiny lead slugs of text. He’d ink them up and pull a paper proof off of the metal text for me to look ever. One approved, he’d make a few very clean paper copies for me to take back to my office and paste-up along with the paper-dolled artwork. That was about a decade ago; my time flies.

The Progress’ front window

A very blurry ampersand taken through the window.

It is the first blue key on the left in the third row from the top.

Soccer Ball!!

Amy sent us a photo of this soccer ball from where she works near Harlem. She said the ball appeared one day at the school.

Olicana

While reading through various emails on this beautiful morning filled with light falling snow, a post on the Top Typefaces of 2009 from Font Shop kept me occupied for a while. In the category of “The Handwriting You Wish Was Yours” is the script Olicana, available in both a smooth and rough version. For now, I’ll just have to wait patiently for just the right project to come along.

Olicana Rough OT by G-Type