Beginning Typography: Horror in Rockwell

Horror in

R

ockwell Type Specifaction Booklet

~By Farrah Cooney~

Scary Stories in...

Rockwell

ROCKWELL IS A SERIF TYPEFACE BELONGING TO THE CLASSIFICATION SLAB SERIF, OR EGYPTIAN, WHERE THE SERIFS ARE UNBRACKETED AND SIMILAR IN WEIGHT TO THE HORIZONTAL STROKES OF THE LETTERS. THE TYPEFACE WAS DESIGNED AT THE MONOTYPE FOUNDRY’S IN-HOUSE DESIGN STUDIO IN 1934.

[1] THE PROJECT WAS SUPERVISED BY FRANK HINMAN PIERPONT. SLAB SERIFS ARE SIMILAR IN FORM AND IN TYPOGRAPHIC VOICE TO REALIST SANS-SERIFS LIKE AKZIDENZ GROTESK OR FRANKLIN GOTHIC.

Rockwell is a serif typeface belonging to the classification slab serif, or Egyptian, where the serifs are unbracketed and similar in weight to the horizontal strokes of the letters. The typeface was designed at the Monotype foundry’s in-house design studio in 1934.

[1] The project was supervised by Frank Hinman Pierpont. Slab serifs are similar in form and in typographic voice to realist sans-serifs like Akzidenz Grotesk or Franklin Gothic.

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Table Of Contents Subject

Page

Anatomy..............................................7

Folio

Line Spacing.........................................8

Type Specification Booklet Horror in Rockwell

Kerning..............................................9

Created for Beginning Typography

Font Family..................................10&11

By Farrah Cooney

Numbers and Symbols..........................12 Alignment.........................................13 Hierarchy...........................................14

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5

Anatomy.... in Rockwell Ascender

Stem

Shoulder

“I’ll go check it out” Descender

Bowl

Serifs

Crossbar

Counter

“Oh Yes, there will be blood!”

Cap Height

“Hi, I’m Chucky, Wanna Play?”

BaseLine X-Height

“1 – 2 – Freddy’s coming for you, 3 – 4 – Better lock your door, 5 – 6 – Grab your crucifix, 7 – 8 – Better stay up late, 9 – 10 – Never sleep again…”

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The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs The babysitter starts doing her homework while awaiting a call from her boyfriend. After awhile the phone rings.

She answers it, but hears no one on the other end — just silence, then whoever it is hangs up. After a few more minutes the phone rings again. She answers, and this time there's a man on the line who says, in a chilling voice, "Have you checked the children?" Click. At first she thinks it might have been the father calling to check up and he got interrupted, so she decides to ignore it. She goes back to her homework, then the phone rings again. "Have you checked the children?" says the creepy voice on the other end. "Mr. Murphy?" she asks, but the caller hangs up again. She decides to phone the restaurant where the parents said they'd be dining, but when she asks for Mr. Murphy she is told that he and his wife had left the restaurant 45 minutes earlier. So she calls the police and reports that a stranger has been calling her and hanging up. "Has he threatened you?" the dispatcher asks. No, she says.

"Well, there's nothing we can really do about it. You could try reporting the prank caller to the phone company."

11/11 Scala 11 PX Type with 11 PX Line Spacing

Line Spacing A few minutes go by and she gets another call. “Why haven’t you checked the children?” the voice says. “Who is this?” she asks, but he hangs up again. She dials 911 again and says, “I’m scared. I know he’s out there, he’s watching me.” “Have you seen him?” the dispatcher asks. She says no. “Well, there isn’t much we can do about it,” the dispatcher says. The babysitter goes into panic mode and pleads with him to help her. “Now, now, it’ll be okay,” he says. “Give me your number and street address, and if you can keep this guy on the phone for at least a minute we’ll try to trace the call. What was your name again?” “Linda.” “Okay, Linda, if he calls back we’ll do our best to trace the call, but just keep calm. Can you do that for me?” “Yes,” she says, and hangs up.

11/12 Scala 11 PX Type with 12 PX Line Spacing

door, attempting to unlock it and dash outside, only to find the chain at the top still latched. In the time it takes her to unhook it she sees a door open at the top of the stairs. Light streams from the children’s bedroom, revealing the profile of a man standing just inside. She finally gets the door open and bursts outside, only to find a cop standing on the doorstep with his gun drawn.

At this point she’s safe, of course, but when they capture the intruder and drag him downstairs in handcuffs, she sees he is covered in blood.

Come to find out, all three children have all been murdered.

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H o o k

K e r n i n g

Tracking 500

Get out of there! Now!!!” She tears to the front She decides to turn the lights down so she can see if anyone’s outside, and that’s when she gets another call. “It’s me,” the familiar voice says.

“Why did you turn the lights down?” “Can you see me?” she asks, panicking. “Yes,” he says after a long pause. “Look, you’ve scared me,” she says. “I’m shaking. Are you happy? Is that what you wanted?” “No.” “Then what do you want?” she asks. Another long pause. “Your blood. All over me.” She slams the phone down, terrified. Almost immediately it rings again. “Leave me alone!” she screams, but it’s the dispatcher calling back. His voice is urgent. “Linda, we’ve traced that call. It’s coming from another room inside the house.

T h e

Tracking 400

A teenage boy drove his date to a dark and deserted Lovers' Lane for a make-out session. He turned on the radio for mood music, leaned over to whisper in the girl's ear, and began kissing her.

Tracking 300

A s h o r t w h i l e l a t e r, t h e m u s i c s u d d e n l y s t o p p e d m i d - s o n g.

After a moment of silence an announcer's voice came on, warning in an ominous tone that a convicted murderer had just escaped from the state insane asylum — which happened to be located within a half-mile of Lovers' Lane — and urging that anyone who notices a man wearing a stainless steel hook in place of his missing right hand should immediately report his whereabouts to the police.

Tracking 200

The gi r l became f r i ghtened and asked to be taken ho m e. Th e b oy, feeli ng bold, locked all the d oors i nstead and, assur in g h is d ate they would be safe, attempted to k i ss her agai n. She b e c am e f rant ic and pushed hi m away, i nsi sti ng that they leave. R ele nt in g, t h e b oy peevi shly jer ked the car i nto gear and spun i ts whee ls as h e p u lle d out of the par k i ng space.

Tracking 100

When they arrived at the girl's house she got out of the car, and, reaching to close the door, began to scream uncontrollably. The boy ran to her side to see what was wrong and there, dangling from the door handle, was a bloody hook.

Tracking 0

11/18 Scala 11 PX Type with 18 PX Line Spacing

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The Clown Statue So-and-so's friend, a girl in her teens, is babysitting for a family in Newport Beach, Ca. The family is wealthy and has a very large house — you know the sort, with a ridiculous amount of rooms. Anyways, the parents are going out for a late dinner/movie. The father tells the babysitter that once the children are in bed she should go into this specific room (he doesn't really want her wandering around the house) and watch TV there.

Bold The parents take off and soon she gets the kids into bed and goes to the room to watch TV. She tries watching TV, but she is disturbed by a clown statue in the corner of the room. She tries to ignore it for as long as possible, but it starts freaking her out so much that she can’t handle it.She resorts to calling the

father and asks, “Hey, the kids are in bed, but is it okay if I switch rooms?

This clown statue is really creeping me out.” The father says seriously, “Get the kids, go next door and call 911.” She asks, “What’s going on?”

Regular

The Killer in the Backseat

Font Family He responds, "Just go next door and once you call the police, call me back." She gets the kids, goes next door, and calls the police.

The police arrive and apprehend the “clown,” who turns out to be a midget. A midget clown! I guess he was some homeless person dressed as a clown, who somehow got into the house and had been living there for several weeks. He would come into the kids’ rooms at nights and watch them while they slept. As the house was so large, he was able to avoid detection, surviving off their food, etc.

Bold Italic He had been in the TV room right before the babysitter right came in there. When she entered he didn’t have enough time to hide, so he just froze in place and pretended to be a statue. When the police are on the way, she calls the father back and asks, "So, really, what's going on?" He responds, "We don't have a clown statue." He then further explains that the children have been complaining about a clown watching them as they sleep. He and his wife had just blown it off, assuming that they were having nightmares.

One night a woman went out for drinks with her girlfriends. She left the bar fairly late at night, got in her car and onto the deserted highway. After a few minutes she noticed a lone pair of headlights in her rear-view mirror, approaching at a pace just slightly quicker than hers.

As the car pulled up behind her she glanced and saw the turn signal on — the car was going to pass — when suddenly it swerved back behind her, pulled up dangerously close to her tailgate and the brights flashed.

Now she was getting nervous. The lights dimmed for a moment and then the brights came back on and the car behind her surged forward.

The frightened woman struggled to keep her eyes on the road and fought the urge to look at the car behind her. Finally, her exit approached but the car continued to follow, flashing the brights periodically. Through every stoplight and turn, it followed her until she pulled into her driveway. She figured her only hope was to make a mad dash into the house and call the police. As she flew from the car, so did the driver of the car behind her — and he screamed, "Lock the door and call the police! Call 911!"

When the police arrived the horrible truth was finally revealed to the woman. The man in the car had been trying to save her.

As he pulled up behind her and his headlights illuminated her car, he saw the silhouette of a man with a butcher knife rising up from the back seat to stab her, so he flashed his brights and the figure crouched back down. The moral of the story: Always check the back seat!

Rockwell Extra Bold- Regular

Italic

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11

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ “!@#$%^&*. {}’`~[]=,()-_+<>:~/?” abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Rockwell-Regular

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ “!@#$%^&*. {}’`~[]=,()_+<>:~/?” abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz Rockwell Extra Bold- Regular

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ “!@#$%^&*.{}’`~[]=,()-_+<>:~/?” abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz Rockwell- Italic

0123456789

So that night she went to bed as usual. She knew everything was okay because when she put down her hand the dog licked it. But later in the night she heard a drip, drip, drip. She put her hand down and the dog licked it and everything was okay, so she went downstairs to check out the tap. But the tap wasn’t dripping.

So she went to bed again.

A girl and her boyfriend are making out in his car. They had parked in the woods so no one would see them.

When they were done, the boy got out to pee and the girl waited for him in the safety of the car.

“!@#$%^&*.{}’`~[]=,()-_+<>:~/?” abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

And everything was okay. She woke up again later in the night, though, so she thought the dripping sound must be coming from the shower. She went into the bathroom, and there was her dog, dead, hanging in the shower, dripping with blood, all its intestines hanging out. Written on the mirror was: “Humans can lick, too!” And behind her in the mirror, she saw the murderer.

This continued a few seconds until the girl decided she had no choice but to drive off. She hit the gas as hard as possible but couldn't go anywhere, because someone had tied a rope from the bumper of the car to a nearby tree.

After waiting five minutes, the girl got out of the car to look for her boyfriend.

Suddenly, she sees a man in the shadows. Scared, she gets back in the car to drive away, when she hears a very faint squeak..squeak... squeak...

“!@#$%^&*.{}’`~[]=,()-_+<>:~/?” abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz Rockwell-Bold Italic

Once there was a nice old lady who had a lovely little dog. One day, the old lady heard on the radio that a crazy murderer had escaped from jail and that she should lock all her doors and windows. So she locked every door and window in the house except one tiny one to let some air in. She thought that a murderer would never get in through there.

Alignment

The Boyfriend's Death

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Rockwell-Bold

Humans Can Lick, Too

0123456789

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Well, the girl slams on the gas again and then hears a loud scream. She gets out of the car and realizes that her boyfriend is hanging from the tree.

The squeaky noises were his shoes slightly scraping across the top of the car!!!

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Hierarchy Rank in Scariest...

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Ed Gein 1974 Friday the 13th Jason 1980 Nightmare on Elm Street Freddy Kruger1984 Halloween Michael Myers 1978

Bloddy Mary Mary 2006

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Published on December 2nd 2012

“Be afraid… Be very afraid.”

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