Have you passed by the windows of the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall recently? Maybe some DayGlo caught your attention? That handy work is thanks to MICA students, faculty and alumni who took over and curated an exhibition.

Come check it out up close and personal at the closing reception on Tuesday March 24 from 5:30–8:30 p.m.

The exhibit highlights Globe’s legendary music posters for R&B, rock, hip hop and Go-Go artists, and also features carnival posters, political posters, and a wall dedicated to the women of Globe, from carnival babes to top women artists. The exhibit also notes MICA students’ contributions to bringing Globe to MICA and includes photographs of students sorting and packing the collection.

But wait! There is MORE!
Several classic screen reprints of iconic Globe posters will be sold during the reception with faculty member Bob Cicero, one of the former owners of the collection, on hand to sign them.

The exhibition team included
MICA graduate students Allison Gulick, Deana Haggag, Chloe Helton-Gallagher, Kelcey Towell
MICA alumna Allison Fisher ’11, Globe consultant at MICA Mary Mashburn

Letterpress proofing by Globe Collection and Press coordinator Ingrid Schindall and interns
Christine Brown, Justin Caruso, Rei Lem, Lyla Schlon and Mario Urpi
Photographs by Sam Culpepper, Allison Fisher, Becky Slogeris ’11
Thanks to Toby Blumenthal at the Meyerhoff, Sabrina Kogan ’11, Kimberly Gim, and Steve St. Angelo

Extra special thanks to Bob and Frank Cicero and to all the Friends of Globe in Baltimore and beyond who helped to save Globe’s treasures

Hope to see you there!
For more information about Globe, email globe@mica.edu

They got a crash course in how Bob would lock up a form. In the video below Bob talks about how he plans out a lock up

The class got a chance to roam around the shop and drool at all the gorgeous type. It was fun to pull open draws of some of my favorites and let them have a peak. Ryan, a junior GD major, got just as excited as I do about 10-49, a slender gothic supermodel.

We put them to work alphabetizing type. They were an immense help, between 15 of them they alphabetized 17 draws of type in about an hour. That’s pretty impressive since half of it was really full drawers of 6 line.

THANK YOU Mary, Shop Boy, Bob, Carolyn, Sabrina, Brian, Ande, Ellen, Sam, Christian, Kim G, Kim B, Kyle, Ann, Michelle, Clara, Scott, Skye, Justin, Chris, Ingrid, Christine, Whitney, Bryn, Ian, Susan, Josh & Lara.

Round of applause for an amazing crew! Now for some smiling faces.

Bob showed us the finer points of a good type lock up. So much to learn.

Photos by Allison, Carolyn & Sam
See more here

It was so exciting and strange to hear ourselves on the radio. I certainly should have practiced my “radio voice” before Leah interviewed us two weeks ago.

Read the full web story here.

People have been leaving really, really great comments on NPR’s facebook link to the story.

And everyone is asking, once again, where they can get their hands on some of those iconic Globe posters. Here’s a link to Globe’s etsy site. The Mr. Dynamite James Brown poster will, hopefully, be re-listed soon. So, sit tight!

And if you happened to come to our blog from the NPR story—Hello there!

Stay tuned on our twitter for how the Great Sort is going.

Here’s to hoping we have a productive Sunday!

David also solved the labeling mystery. On each drawer there is a number, example 15-55. We knew the first number was the line height. The second number stumped us. We knew it had to do with the weight of the character, a 55 was skinner than a 65, but it was all proportional to the line height.

When David came to visit he brought with him a Globe Wood Type catalog that he had found. Globe Wood Type is a company based out of Philly. Relationship? We’re looking into it. The catalog solved the mystery, the second number matched the order numbers in the catalog. A very practical way for printers to order more of the same type.

The MICA friends stopped by the shop to meet David and do some type sorting. We did a practice run for the big sort part II that starts today. The plan is to go through the collection each drawer at a time and alphabetize, and each height with more than one drawer will be equalized. By the end we will know exactly how many of every letter is in the collection.

We got to put our department chairs to work too. Gail and Whitney dug into the Copper Black corner, and put some lost letters back in their homes.

Our friend Zoe, a fellow MICA GD senior came to the shop for the day too. She got more than just a visit though, she got a thesis crit from David. Zoe’s thesis project is 2012 calendar that highlights 12 important innovations in the history of letterpress. The type she is using is scanned and vectorized for polymer plates but all of the type comes from specimen sheets from the Rob Roy Kelly Collection. David had some really fun insights to share with us about that collection.

The digital proofs of Zoe’s calendar are magnificent. I can’t wait to see the real letterpress deal. We will let you know when it gets released for purchase.

The Friends of Globe were hard at work all day pulling together last minute details and hoping for a packed house. MICA events dept. put our minds at ease when they said the phone had been ringing off the hook. The Friends made buttons to pass out to guests after they filled out some information on a card designed by our own Sabrina, and printed at Typecast Press.

We hung a showcase of Globe and Hatch Show Print posters.

Then sold them like hot cakes as well.

Time for some much warranted THANK YOUS! The usual suspects first. My partner in crime, Carolyn, our co-collaborators Sabrina, Ellen and Greg. The wonderful Ariel B. and Colin, grad students from Mt. Royal School. Mary & Shop Boy of Typecast Press, Kyle of BPS & Dolphin Press and Gail, the printmaking dept. chair.

THANK YOU! to our lovely and talented classmates who helped sell posters and greet guests. Zoe, Ariel W, Bong, Michelle, Kailie, Andy, Ryan & Sam. Thank you to Anita from the graphic design department who loaned us the button makers and let us store stuff in her office. The evening would not have run as smoothly as it did without your help!

You guys rock, a round of high fives for everyone! Sorry Sorry if I missed you, let me know so I can add you.

We went through wood type, cuts, posters, sketches, ruby liths, amber liths, digital films, and boxes of mystery.

We found amazing pieces of entertainment history and listened to good music along the way. Want to make the perfect Globe Pandora station? Combined The Temptations and Little Richard, thanks Carolyn!

A big thanks to everyone who made this week awesome! From Left to Right. Colin and Ariel, 2nd year graduate students at the Mt. Royal School. Carolyn, a senior at MICA. Ande from Orange Element, who joined us today as a guest type sorter. Mary and Steve, aka Shop Boy, of Typecast Press. Allison, senior at MICA, and Kyle from Dolphin Press and Baltimore Print Studios.

Not pictured contributing friends: Ellen and Greg, senior graphic designers at MICA. Whitney, Director of the new MFA Illustration Practice program at MICA. Sabrina, a MICA senior, was home for break but checking in on us regularly and busting out some killer design work for the upcoming lecture. Last but not least thank you Bob for sharing this collection with us!

See more of our finding on on Flickr, and Have a happy weekend!

One more thing! Jim Sherraden of Hatch Show Print is coming Tuesday March 22, 6PM Falvey Hall in the Brown Center at MICA. Its going to be an excellent talk, its free and open to the public. The Friends of Globe are going to be there, in gold, and you should too!

MICA students we need your help! We need ushers to help with the event, we will have a table with Globe posters and t-shirts, as well as Hatch Show Print posters. If you are available at 5pm to help before the event please email us at MICAfriendsofglobe[at]gmail[dot]com

We found ourselves walking around the shop the first hour we were there pulling open draws and drooling. The type nerd in all of us gazed at the 50 line extra condensed, and then spotted little sister, the 8 line version a few draws up. Not all the love goes to the tall skinny super models though, we have crushes on the huskier bold extended gothics as well.

Tuesday day was presented as a type treasure hunt, find all the loose type in the shop and figure out where it belongs. A reverse treasure hunt of sorts, or as Kyle said, “putting the gold back in the pot.” Carolyn, Ellen and I cracked to it rounding up every last loose letter. We quickly became well aquatinted with the layout of the shop, and in what section we were mostly likely to find homes for our displaced friends.

While we were busy sorting type Shop Boy and Kyle sorted through giant boxes, like the kind you stand in, filled with lots of smaller boxes. Those smaller boxes are filled with cuts of singers and performers. They have been noting some of the famous faces they has seen and the attire of some of the performers, trying to get a good feel for what is hidden in those boxes. On the opposite side of the shop Ariel and Colin have been flipping through old portfolios of films and sketches, occasionally calling us over when they find something not to be missed. Such as sketches for posters hanging around the shop, or the incredible rubylith films for an old horror flick are just a few of the treasures they have pointed out.

Its incredible to see what’s hiding out in the shop, pieces of music, movie, Baltimore, circus, and racing history, you name it its there. It makes for a long days but we don’t go unfed. We start our day with a magical breakfast of doughnuts and baked goods, from Hoehn’s Bakery. At lunch time we get amazing sandwiches from the Italian deli in the neighborhood, Di Pasquales. Bob entertains us with stories of Globe, how the shop used to operate, and the people who worked there.

See more pictures on our Flickr, but for now its time to get some thesis work done!

NOTCOT
PRINTERESTING’s newest Globe post

PRINTERESTING
PRINTERESTING’s first Globe post