Monsieur Robb Ogle of Ontario (that’s near downtown Canada, for the Americans) gives us a novel little thing, The “The” Project. This is pretty much what you’d expect—a gallery made up of the word “the,” lettered variously. All pre-digital, too!All of the examples are pretty sweet; they’re all from old Hollywood movie placards and books. So we get hand-lettered examples from 1930s romances, old Laurel and Hardy japes, and sixties scare-fiction titles about how you could turn out to be one of the bad seeds if you don’t eat your broccoli. It’s all pretty delicious, and a great thing for retro nerds. Best of all, this is all in vector art format to be downloaded and re-used. Everything’s licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (meaning you’re free to use and remix the work, as long as the original source is cited).
Robb’s work, if you don’t know it, is pretty great. He’s focused on type, lettering, and calligraphy, but not without a healthy serving of illustration, having worked for quite some time on several things you’ve probably seen, including quite a bit of work for Font Bureau. Gen X’ers with your Macintoshes, take note: he works by hand. Shocking! (Gen Y’ers, you may go back to your silkscreening and drawing; stop looking at me like that. Thank you.)