Autumn 2007
The riddle of the spine
Letter from John Hubbard
Just a quick note of praise for the new issue of Eye. I just spent three days attending The Society of Typographic Aficionados 2007 conference, fortunately held in Seattle, so to go to the newsstand and find that issue 64 of Eye is a Typography issue is, well . . . great!
I am curious to know what happened on the spine. Every issue I have been able to find has a small amount of text (just after the word ‘Summer’) blacked out with a marker.
Seattle
The editor replies: ‘There’s no getting around it – the spine of the Summer issue contained a literal; a Helvetica Rounded Bold ‘6’ where there should have been a ‘7’. Otherwise known as an error, a typo, disinformation, mistake, porkie pie or the destabilising introduction of ambiguity into a formerly sacrosanct world of accuracy and reliability. Though I guess nobody would set their alarm clock by Eye. Subscribers will have seen this horror for themselves, but newsstand buyers were protected by the speedy application of a black marker pen, thus creating the special, limited-edition version of Eye 64 described by John Hubbard. Apologies.’
First published in Eye no. 65 vol.17 2007
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