Fine type

Cool Britannia is alive and well, according to Wayne Hemingway. The designer is launching a new vintage-inspired typographic print collection in collaboration with East End Prints, due to launch on 19 April at Green and Fay furniture and design store.

To inspire the collection, Hemingway and his design team have handpicked a fine selection of retro typography from his Land of Lost Content archive, the world’s largest archive of 20th century pop culture.

Type from the last thirty years has been hunted from the archive and those Hemingway deems worthy of the collection will be featured and available to purchase from East End Prints.

Hemingway says, ‘The history of typography is rich and often well-documented but most of these prints have never been published before so enjoy a rare bit of design history.’

Classic designs like these never really go out of style and Hemingway, by collating the very best, reminds us of why that is. From the black and white to the very bold, it’s exciting to see these published.

The East End Prints website shows a great sample of what will be involved in the Vintage collection. Helen Edwards, director of the company, promises there is some more great graphic art to follow, so we should all watch this space!

Edwards says, ‘The impression I got from Wayne is he was looking for the right match of business for the archive. I feel we can do this justice both with quality and profile.

‘My aim is show the world all of the gems that we have from both new and established collections of graphic art’, she adds.

The launch of the collection begins the countdown to Vintage at Southbank, due to take place over the weekend of 29 July. Influenced by the 1951 Festival of Britain, it will celebrate British musical, fashion, film, art, design and cultural lineages, from the 1920s to the 1980s.

An exhibition of the collection will run from 19 April – 15 May at Green & Fay, 137-139 Essex Road, London N1. The Land of Lost Content archive is available to download to those in education at www.edu.lolc.co.uk.