Textile shippers' tickets

A while ago I paid an all-too-brief visit to the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester and was taken in by the collection of shipper’s tickets.

A shipper ticket was a trademark stamp each textile merchant would attach to the cloth they sold. Branding, in other words. They designed each stamp with their customers in mind, using motifs and colours they believed would appeal to them, and, of course, made their stamp unique and recognisable.

They’re beautiful.

And I must go back to Manchester.

LEGO does Halloween

And does it well.

The shaving pictogram dude

For years, probably decades, I’ve wondered about the story behind this, to me, iconic pictogram.

Why? Because it is everywhere. I’ve never seen another pictogram representing what this represents; an electric shaver socket. It’s so ubiquitous that it must demonstrate some kind of perfection in pictogram design. Why change it?

Anyway, having wondered about it for years, a few days ago I finally decided to ask reddit. Sometimes a very silly thing to do, but sometimes, like this time, you get actual answers.

Turns out the man behind it is Werner Sramek, “Werner Sramek was a painter and graphic designer of global renown. During his international career, he received countless honours and awards. His artistic focus was on font, colour, and pictogram design, textile painting, and, in later years, free-style painting. His most famous graphic work is the direction system in the Vienna underground and the signature colours for lines U1 (red) and U4 (green). Sramek also created the graphic concept of the Naturhistorisches Museum and the colour system at the Ernst-Happel-Stadion.”

Apparently, this pictogram has only been in use since 2002, which confuses me, but then again I still think 10 years ago is 1990.

So there you go. My curiosity is sated, and you’ve learned something you didn’t think you would learn.