Huzzah! It’s the roaring 20s again! The trans-atlantic telephone is all the rage, the stock market is on a roll and Les Baxter is fourty years away from filling our hi-fis with the exotic sounds of faraway fantasy islands. For now, though, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is all the rage and all our aspirations are tied up with technology and the coming rise of the man-machine and mythical pocket calculator.
Enter Rudolf Koch. Despite being in the twilight of his years, he has the audacity to draw Kabel, a geometric typeface with a distinct wackiness that makes other geometric typefaces look constipated, struggling to find a glass of prune juice and a saturday evening post for any relief.
Unfortunately (or not), my love of Kabel is not exclusive to the type itself (the outlandish upward sloping venetian e, the brilliant g and its shiv-tastic terminals are all turn-ons). Instead i ask you to consider the contrast between Kabel, Neuland and all of Koch’s other script types.
You see, although in this weird family, Kabel looks like a prepped out douche wearing a pepto-pink lacoste shirt next to rowdy uncle Neuland, when you step out into the regular world all those unfortunate associations fall away and kabel looks downright decent. Ok, i’ll concede, maybe a little goofy, perhaps a bit lighthearted, but really, is that such a problem these days?? I mean, it’s still 1927, we have so much to look forward to!
—marcos
