What A Card --- Day 5/185

Walk: Van Ness, Fillmore errands, Trader Joe's
Distance: 4 miles, home yoga



This is the business card Ed Ruscha printed, carried and handed out in the early 60's.  Ciwt likes it a lot.  Ruscha had only arrived in L.A.to attend art school - by car of course - a few years before.  He was about 25, and the 60's were not the era when everyone - muchless young artists - carried business cards.  (That was the 80's.  Remember all those self-promotion pamphlets and stationery?)

What is discretely evident already in his card is Ruscha's restless ambition, his absolute (and humorous) self-confidence and his lifelong love of words which he loved the slosh of on his cheeks and tongue.

Also here already is Ruscha's on-going relationship with text and image. Text as image, as subject, as a character in its own right.  Text as a font he eventually invented and calls Boy Scout Utility Modern.    What a great name for a typeface!