Unlike me, my mother is a pack-rat. The other day, she pulled out a bag of left-over material samples which she salvaged while emptying out my grandmother's apartment years ago. My grandmother was a remarkable seamstress and regularly scoured the wholesale fabric deals in Montreal's East-End – the robustly beating heart of the city's Eastern European Jewish community.
My kids were delighted with the colourful assortment and immediately started designing new exotic creations for the household dolls. I went through the various scraps at my pace, recalling the beautiful clothes my grandmother had made from each. When looking through some ordinary blue jersey, i came across a wonderful tag with a remarkably modern and bold, graphic identity set in a combination of Futura and an unidentified brush script, cleanly branded in black, white and gold. The back of the unpretentious yet effective uncoated tag further introduces a Copperplate Gothic and possibly a condensed Franklin Gothic as humble headline.
I have no idea as to when it was produced. My guess would be the 70's from the quality of the linear work in the symbol, but I am merely guessing (I've had no luck at validating my guess from online search).
Modern retro? Avant-garde surprise? Brand-savy mid-century industrial entrepreneur? Cheesy unsophisticated paste-up?
Many possibilities. Single effect. Timeless impact.
interesting what each of us notices
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