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More pictures from the trip to the Museum of London and Imperial War Museum! On the left is the design on the wall that was imprinted in gold in order to show the way to the "Victorian Walk" area of the museum, which had a bunch of cute shops that were done in a way to resemble life in Victorian England. It was really cute and I love the way that this sign was done! In general, I think that there's something really classy about pairing black and yellow together but even the lighting to illuminate it manages to pull it all together nicely. The font chosen is very delicate and refined as well, which definitely resembles Victorian England. It was really fitting!
Next up is the bunch of signs that were used in World War I to act as guides for those who were embroiled in trench warfare. Some of the familiar names "Eton Lane" and "Piccadilly Circus" were put up by soldiers who would miss their home. It's just very real, especially as the other names are brought up like Hellfire Corner and Death Valley. It's really sobering to just see it all laid out like that.
On the 24th of June, we went to the Imperial War Museum in the morning and afterward, we went to the Museum of London to explore all the artifacts that they had stored there. I didn't really think that I would find a lot that would interest me -- I stored a lot of information about history, but European history was never my forte -- and I found myself pleasantly surprised. On the left is a page from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in particular from "The Clerk's Tale." The page was printed by William Caxton and is dated back to 1476. On the description it reads, "[T]he letter type reproduced a contemporary writing style." though it most closely can be placed in the category of Blackletter as it evokes very gothic imagery with painstaking detail put into every capital letter.
However my favorite find from the museum was the following: a program from the St. James Theatre when the play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde was performed on February 14th, 1895. It's my absolute favorite play and seeing this artifact that related so closely to my interests was fantastic. The use of different versions of type, including Decorative, Blackletter, and Oldstyle is very effective as your eyes are drawn to different parts of the page. It seems to hold a lot of old history to it and I love looking at it and feeling its age in the way that it was designed.
