Chronotype’s studios enforce dated rules — what an object had to carry in a given year and market, and what the press of that year could do. These pages are those rules in full, with sources, so a designer can check the work rather than trust it.
Each studio in Chronotype enforces a set of dated rules — what a label, a page, a poster, a document, a carton, a sign or a medicine pack had to carry in a given year and a given market. These are those rules written out, with the instrument each one comes from, so you can check the work or argue with it. The tenth page is not about a studio: it is about what survives the lens and the tenth row, which decides how much of the other nine the audience will ever see.
Three words a second; the smallest letter that is still text; why greeked filler died with high definition; moiré, paper white and optical brighteners; the fifteen per cent cheat; the multiples printed before the take; the telephone ranges four countries reserve for fiction and the four that reserve none; and one inch of letter for every ten feet of house.
Read it →Why a bar code on a 1979 paperback is wrong and a British book says SBN until 1974 and net until 1997; how wide a spine is and which way it reads in each country; what a jacket carries on each flap; and the series looks the Cover Studio imitates without copying anyone.
Read it →What period-correct graphic props are, how to create a fictional company for film, what makes historical graphic design believable, and how to design period packaging, newspapers and signage.
Read the notes →When each country let private stations on the air, when the logo went into the corner of the picture, the FM dial and its band, microphone flags from enamel plates to plastic cubes, and the lettering on the news car.
Read it →When each country let What dates a web page on the air, when the logo went into the corner of the picture, the FM dial and its band, microphone flags from enamel plates to plastic cubes, and the lettering on the news car.
Read it →When each country let The production file on the air, when the logo went into the corner of the picture, the FM dial and its band, microphone flags from enamel plates to plastic cubes, and the lettering on the news car.
Read it →When each country let What dates a signature on the air, when the logo went into the corner of the picture, the FM dial and its band, microphone flags from enamel plates to plastic cubes, and the lettering on the news car.
Read it →When each country let What dates a photograph on the air, when the logo went into the corner of the picture, the FM dial and its band, microphone flags from enamel plates to plastic cubes, and the lettering on the news car.
Read it →When each country let What dates a map on the air, when the logo went into the corner of the picture, the FM dial and its band, microphone flags from enamel plates to plastic cubes, and the lettering on the news car.
Read it →Typed and sealed in a pouch, photographed whole by a Polaroid ID camera, printed on PVC from about 1990, worn upright on a lanyard from 2000; when Codabar, the magnetic stripe, the chip and the QR code arrive; the hotel key, the press card and the hospital badge.
Read it →Paper labels punched to simple shapes, then die-cut vinyl round the drawing from about 1990; when the name-tag slap, the tag and the stencil arrive; how a slap fades, scratches and peels; and how to cut a masking patch that hides a real logo on camera.
Read it →When each country’s civil register begins; the state line by regime; a Greek degree in katharevousa and polytonic until 1982; why a hologram on a 1962 degree is wrong and the VOID pantograph needs 1978; and when paper shares and bearer bonds ended, country by country.
Read it →Why Ltd needs 1856 and plc needs 1981, GmbH 1892, S.p.A. 1942 and Ε.Π.Ε 1955; why nobody has a telephone number before 1880 or a full British postcode before 1974; which trade mark a firm in a given trade and decade could have worn, and how small each of those devices still reads.
Read it →What shape a warning was cut to and when the symbol moved inside it, why a STOP sign was yellow until 1954 and said HALT in Britain until the end of 1964, the keystone give-way, the orange square that became the red diamond, and what a plate was made of in each decade.
Read it →The course architecture decade by decade, shillings and pence before 1971, the 1942 five-shilling maximum and its compulsory house charge, Prohibition, service compris, allergens and calories — and the Greek single-column price list with its surcharge block.
Read it →POISON and the death’s-head, the Pure Food and Drugs guarantee, Durham–Humphrey, the leaflet from 1992, Braille from 2005 and the Data Matrix from 2019 — with real carton formats and dimensions.
Read it →Appellations, proof and % vol, the fifth and the 750, the ℮ mark, sulfites and the Government Warning, allergens, deposits and barcodes — and the geometry of a label that goes round a wall that slopes.
Read it →Stacked decks and the first banners, halftone and colour, the price in old pence, the G.P.O. line and the ISSN — and καθαρεύουσα and polytonic accents for the Greek sheet.
Read it →The one-sheet at 27×41 and then 27×40, the UK quad, the locandina and the daybill; stone litho, letterpress, screen, Riso and the photocopier — and why blackletter is never set in capitals.
Read it →Foolscap and Kanzleibogen before A4, US Letter from 1921, pink and blue flimsies, wartime austerity stock, the carbon copy against the photocopy — and the money that changes underfoot.
Read it →Cut, crease and glue flap; the ECMA code; the one correct hinged-lid construction; and the health warning that dates a pack to the year in the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa.
Read it →The same three questions decide every prop in this system.
And one rule that never changes. Everything the studios generate is fictional. They do not reproduce a real trademark, masthead, appellation seal, registered mark, state emblem or fiscal stamp, and nothing they print is for use on real goods, medicines or documents. These pages document the real history; the props invent within it.
Every rule on these pages is built into the tools. Pick a year and a market and the studio applies them for you, and tells you why.
See the studios →