This current piece – Scare Head* – draws, in part, from early C20th type specification promotions, where random headlines were deployed to demonstrate the suitability of a typeface to the requirements of the advertising industry. Gathered into single, bound publications, these acquired certain dadaesque qualities; the babble of colliding announcements resonating with the shock modernity explored by Heartfield, Grosz, and Höch. Working with a blend of text sources, Scare Head presents various weights and sizes of Alternate Gothic by the American Type Founders Company (ATF) who developed a range of weights based upon Morris Fuller Benton’s 1903 design, which was widely used throughout the C20th in newspapers and advertising.

*Scare Head — Defined as ‘an extra large, sensational head-line, as in a newspaper.’ Processes of Printing With a Brief Glossary of Terms. Compiled by A. A. Stewart (Boston Mass. 1912