Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope your week has been full of pleasant things. Can you believe we are a week into October already? Where does the time fly? Away, just away. But while we have Friday, we might as well talk about typography. And, today, I want to talk about getting typography right.

I’m a bit of a type nerd, as you may have figured out from reading this blog, and I could talk about typography for ages if you let me. There’s just so much to explore when it comes to type that it seems like every day brings something new to learn. But today I just want to focus on an instance of getting typography right. I shared some signs recently that I loved and have some to explore later that I really didn’t love, but it’s Friday so we should have something delightful and positive to end the workweek. So here is an example of type done right by Hollander’s:

Hollander’s is a supplier of decorative papers and bookbinding materials. And, while I haven’t been to their store in Ann Arbor, I did just receive a shipment of supplies that included this lovely example of typography on one of their bags.

Now, it shouldn’t be surprising that a shop that specializes in bookbinding supplies also has a great sensibility when it comes to type, but I’ve been surprised before. This one, though, is great. Everything works.

The serif font used is awesome–readable, upright, traditional, yet quirky. Love how the H functions almost as a drop cap in this setting. The san serif works beautifully with the serif font. Everything is clean and reproduces beautifully even on a brown paper bag. The horizontal line (the rule) between Hollanders and “in the Kerrytown Shops” works to bring the two lines of text together, yet separate them so they are instantly readable.

The contact information is easy to read, which is what you definitely want as a business. People need to contact you so you can make sales. Love that they chose to use some dingbats (I believe these are from Wingding 2) to separate the contact information instead of using default dots or slashes.

This is a great example of typography done right and an example that even something as ephemeral as a paper bag provides the designer with an opportunity to mix beauty and function to make the world a better place, at least typographically speaking.

So with that, I leave you with just a bit more inspiration for your month in the form of Smashing Magazine’s October Design Inspiration post. The photos give me wanderlust while the colors make me want to design all the autumnal things.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend full of autumnal delights and time with family and friends. I’ll be back soon with more news and notes. Allons-y!

P.S. If you ever want to try your hand at bookbinding and live in the Bay Area, definitely check out San Francisco Center for the Book’s great line-up of workshops.