[3 Piet Zwart artworks for a Bruynzeel Fineerfabriek blotter] bigkenji 21 × 30 mm

21 × 30 mm

It’s a 10-volume set that’s a kind of visual memory of graphic art from the first half of the 20th century

(Elizabeth Wyatt)

it’s part type specimen

direct style that anyone—regardless of their education and nationality—was able to understand his images

[3 Piet Zwart artworks for a Bruynzeel Fineerfabriek blotter] bigkenji 21 × 30 mmBefore the ballpoint pen was popularized in the 1950s, people wrote with fountain pens or dip pens. Because fountain pen ink of that era could be slow to dry and highly prone to smudging, people who wrote things often kept small, loose sheets of highly absorbent, unsized paper close at hand. Whenever one finished writing a letter, filling out an invoice, or signing a check, one would gently press this small card over the wet ink to soak up the excess