Phaeton in the Wild
Last Christmas, Kate got me the best (and nerdiest) present ever. A font. Well, a typeface. I try not to be a dick, but every time I hear or say the word “font” I throw up in my mouth, just a little.
Kevin Cornell’s Phaeton is just plain awesome, with rustic hand-drawn letterforms that just makes you wanna open a hardware store in Deadwood and start swearing a lot or something. I used it for the Hans and Umbach Electromechanical Computing Company. Veer’s got it, and it’s a wonderful tonic that cures whatever ails.
Kevin and Randy Jones launched Phaeton about a year and a half ago, and my filthy little hands have been playing with it for over a year. I’ve become hypersensitive to the shape of its letters, a party trick that doesn’t get me very far given I’ve never encountered the typeface in the wild.
Until now. Tonight I was stoked to discover that the packaging for Trader Joe’s salt water taffy is rocking the Phaeton. They aren’t using any of its killer-awesome swashes and alternates (come on, guys!) but it’s undeniably there, with its crooked, whiskey-soaked grin and stubby urchin fingers.
Or, with its boardwalks, straw boaters and penny arcade machines.
It’s versatile like that.
