Sunday, July 22, 2012

Hermes Dilema




The lighting in my radio room is not the best for photos and I was too lazy to get the photo floods out.  I do plan a future post on all of the Hermes when I get the first rounded body finished and some other projects out of the way.

When typing with this machine on a page beside where the regular pica is typed this font looks much cleaner and easier to read.  One of the few serif fonts I like.

Anyone know why some of the Ss have a line through them and others have a short horizontal line beside them while others have the short horizontal line as well as the vertical line through them?


14 comments:

  1. It's always great to get surprise bonuses, congratulations Bill. The typeface looks awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Agree with Ton, the typeface is awesome, and the machine is very attractive! I can relate, I had the same experience trying to repair my dad's Lettera 32. Ended up adding two more Letteras to the collection, "bought as parts machines", but in the end they too were refurbished and put to working order. None of them has the same typeface as my dad's, not even the same keyboard layout (punctuation signs, symbols, etc.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bill - i guess that is a kind of good bad luck and your quest for a parts machine continues!

    btw - what camera are you using to take the pic of that typeface? cool pic!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Most of my photos for the blog are done with an Olympus Camedia 535, 3.2 Mp digital camera. It is old and small. The resolution is only 3.2 Mp, but for 90% of what I post higher resolution is to no advantage. The big reasons I use old Olynmpus cameras is 1/ they us AA batteries 2/ they have Super Macro which allows me to focus as closely as 0.80 inches or 0.02m. I also use a C4000Z from Olympus with the same macro specs. See: WebPhotography

      Delete
    2. The c-4000Z has adjustable white balance which would have been nice for the macro on this post since the slugs would have been rendered their true grey-silver color.

      Delete
    3. i actually like the amber hue around the typeface - it gives it a godly quality

      thanks for sharing your cameras

      maybe i will look into finding something similar!

      Delete
  4. That's a nice dilemma to have. I have concentrated lately on typefaces, and now interesting machines are crossing my path. It seems you can't really steer the ship.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Congrats on happening upon a great typeface! It is nice and clean. I like it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Bill, I wish I had that sort of problem. I get the same feeling when I pay very little for a machine and it turns out far too nice to use as a

    ReplyDelete
  7. Organ donor or even to sell or give as a gift. Needless to say, an H3K is still on my wish-list. Lighting on the macro is perfect - even the colour cast... Just like it is.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Heh, I've had good luck on the Two Hermes 3000's we have. My first was a round-bodied 1964 model with Director Pica font. Once I had mine, Tori wanted one - and just picking a nice-looking round-bodied one from eBay got us another 1964 (just a few hundred digits in serial number from the first one), and that one had the same Petit Pica font that yours has :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ted,
      Great finds! I prefer the round body ones, but I find more of the square body ones. Both the Director Pica and Petit Pica are nice fonts.

      Delete
  9. Those are some clean type bars. What do you like about the Hermes 3000? I'm admittedly not a Hermes fan.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. At first I did not like the feel of the Hermes 3000. I bought one since they seem to have a good reputation and I thought they looked neat. After I got one that was a really nice typer I started using mine more and grew to like the feel, especially after typing for several pages. I ended up with several because the price was cheap. When I got them and found some nice type faces I kept them. Over all I mostly like that I have several type faces and one really nice typer.

      Delete