The future’s so bright…
Back in the olden days when computers were bigger than a garden shed and had the processing power of a digital watch, typefaces like this were always used to signify THE FUTURE and anything sexily high-tech and space-age. That type style was based on a font called E13B designed in the 1950s by the banking industry to be read by computers as part of the Magnetic Ink Character Recognition system, and you still see those funny-looking numbers on the bottom of your cheques today. The idea that a machine could “read” something must have been quite exciting at the time and a sign of how groovy the future was going to be so no wonder it was used in this fashion.
Forgive me for getting all font-nerd on you but it’s because I am one that I find it rather amusing to see it used on this cover which projects a very Tomorrow’s World-style optimism about the coming decade and seems to be looking forward to an era of robots and jet packs for everyone. Of course what we actually got was an oil crisis, strikes, inflation, riots, and brown flares — and I thought The Economist were supposed to know stuff like that.
Download: This Is Tomorrow – Bryan Ferry (mp3)
I had a pop along to the This is Tomorrow expo at the Whitechapel a couple of weeks back there’s quite a bit of Roxy/crossover with the venue..
http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/this-is-tomorrow
I think TIT is probably my favorite solo Ferry album
There’s some similar riffing on future possibilties here, that’s well worth nipping over for
http://www.armagideon-time.com/?p=5293
And, of course, Richard Hamilton was one of Bryan Ferry’s art teachers at college in the 60s.
I really like your blog and have passed on a ‘stylish blog’ award to you :-)
Bryan Ferry is one of three I like as much now as then, he just gets better with age.
Why thank you Amy. I like the cut of your blog cloth too.
I’ve a pic of a 1968-ish Radio Times cover featuring a girl in a silver space suit promoting TW. There’s a room sizes computer in the background. It uses that rounded-future font that was also ubiquitous at the time (Can’t remember the name, I think ITVs ‘World of Sport’ used it).
Saw Roxy last week at the O2 in London. Superb. They played a memorable purists set including songs like ’2HB’ ‘If there is Something’ ‘Bitter-Sweet’ ‘Just Like You’ and ‘Prairie Rose’.
I took my 17 year old daughter and her friend who are both heavily into Roxy and they loved it.
Would you believe…
Regarding the last sentence of your post, JK Galbraith remarked that “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable”.
Still waiting for my silver jumpsuit and jet pack.