Progress is a fact in every human endeavour. Cars are getting faster, or at least more efficient. Bicycle manufacturers are making them ever lighter. Records have ever greater sound depths and fidelity. Make-up is making us ever more beautiful. Well, in a way…

Tho-Radia tin, prominently displaying the quasi medical name, Dr Alfred Curie

Recently there have been several scares in the predominantly pseudo-scientific beauty industry – poisoned breasts, faces contaminated with nano-particles and infected, burnt-off faces. Scientists are crying out to help.

But how about harnessing the vivacious power of radiation?

Sounds enticing doesn’t it? Imagine immersing your entire being in an invisible radioactive haze. You could peel off untold layers of skin, to reveal the beautiful, young skin underneath. You could invigorate yourself from the inside out. Radioactive substances were used for all manner of consumer goods, as shown in this slideshow from Environmental Graffiti, but beauty products, topically applied, must be among the most concerning.

Until the 1930s, Tho-Radia was a french face cream fortified with both thorium and radium. Much like Clarins’ Rashid Enamany, Tho-Radia had its own fictional boffin; Dr Alfred Curie had no links to the discoverers of radiation.

Similar creams were marketed to women from a very early point in the last century. This was the beginning of the scientification (The Inquisition’s word) of the beauty industry. Claims went from simple beautification to the safe removal of birthmarks!

Why stop at creams?

Women could buy, at inflated costs, lipsticks, soaps, lotions, foods and more. Men were also looked after in this brave new world.

Equally pleasant to any of the women’s products was The Scrotal Radiendocrinator. Any man looking to restore reproductive function could employ this irradiated scrotum soak. Anyone stupid enough to do so should have applied it to their head instead.

Alternatively, they may also have been interested in Vita Radium Suppositories. After a 15 day course the men of Colorado, where it was produced, would have noticed remarkable changes.

All manner of ingestions were possible to receive the benefits of radiation. Radithor was a concentrated radium tonic. Eben Byers was a well known playboy and an amateur golf champion. He consumed 4 fluid ounces (approx 100ml) of it every day. He died in 1932 racked with anemia, a brain abscess and with a putrid, decaying jaw. Lovely.

Anyone looking to irradiate themselves ought to seek protection – especially for repeated exposure. Unfortunately, even mild doses of radiation are way beyond the frankly wild protective remit of Clarins Expertise 3p.

All of this questions how people still fall for the claims made by the cosmetics industry. Scientists have always brought on board to reinforce these claims, but do those creams really make you look ten years younger? Really? And do the scientists accept the limits of their knowledge – are these products not just effective but safe?

Consumers are easily swayed in a society which places the highest emphasis on physical beauty. After all, that little pot of cream might just work…

Update

Check out this infographic which shows dodgy chemicals still have a place in cosmetics.

Bibliography
Environmental Graffiti Slideshow
Radium cream advertising
Radior Product Shot
New York Times on irradiated beauty products
Quackometer on CLarins E3P
A chemist questions some products’ claims
Invented chemical ingredients
The Scotsman
Pseudoscience
Nano-particles described in the Telegraph
Multiple Exposures – Chronicles of the Radiation Age, Catherine Caulfield, Harper & Row, 1989
Trafficking Materials and Gendered Experimental Practices: Radium Research in Early 20th Century Vienna, Maria Rentetzi, Columbia University Press, 2007 (http://www.gutenberg-e.org/rentetzi/chapter01.html)

Original content created by: The Inquisition

Be warned: This article will run rough-shod over typographic history

Although Berlin Sans is a new, modern and digital face, it is a re-imagining of a much earlier design, Negro, by a German emigré to New York, Lucian Bernhard. As a form of shorthand, and to reflect the modern availability of Berlin Sans, this article will run rough-shod over typographic history by describing the biographical details of Negro’s designer, as the progenitor of the modern font, whose details will in turn be discussed. It is after all, due to Lucian Bernhard that the font ever came about. It will also refer to both fonts as Berlin Sans as the glyph shapes are so alike. Once again, this is due to the fact that to purchase the font for digital use, you would be seeking Berlin Sans.

Equally so, in discussing Lucian Bernhard, The Inquisition does not mean to belittle David Berlow’s work on this beautiful font. Simply put, the genus for this lettering can be traced back to Bernhard’s design output and its lettering forms. That is the story to be told.

Please Note

Other early twentieth century German printers’ jobbing fonts have been digitised. See Erik Spiekermann’s Berliner Grotesk as an alternative, with perhaps more personality but less flexibility.

Lucian Bernhard's very stylish, stacked signature

Lucian Bernhard, Type Designer

Lucian Bernhard (1883 – 1972) was a self-taught graphic artist, painter, type- and industrial-designer. He was born as Emil Kahn. Throughout his life he disliked speaking of the past, even to his children, meaning there is much speculation about his exact biographical details. It seems the most plausible reasons for the name change was either a reaction against his father or a prescient move in the face of growing anti-semitism in Germany.

During the First World War Bernhard worked for the German government in the production of propagandistic artworks.

Lucian Bernhard's winning Priester poster

Bernhard’s breakthrough moment came when he entered a competition to design a promotion for Priester matches. The money offered was very little, but times were tight and he had a name to make for himself. In the end he won not just the competition but also ongoing work from the marketing company who oversaw the competition.

Bernhard’s initial Priester design was a complex Jugendstil piece; Germany’s take on Art Nouveau, and the bleeding edge style of the time. At a friend’s suggestion he started to simplify the over-wrought work, initiating a process he knew as “addition by subtraction”.

The judges decided that the final work, a gaudily coloured writing of the company name and two accompanying twigs of matches was heinous. They threw it in the bin and moved on. Luckily for Bernhard, and indeed twentieth century design more generally, one of the executives from the marketing firm who was sent to oversee the competition saw the binning taking place. He rushed over, retrieved the artwork and admonished the judges by proclaiming the winner to be found. While many thought this simple poster too stark, too modern, the executive’s vision changed German design.

The Priester story was later told by Bernhard himself, so it may well be apocryphal.

Lucian Bernhard's Informative Functionalist poster for Adler Typewriters

Lucian Bernhard's Informative Functionalist poster for Bosch Sparkplugs

Lucian Bernhard's Informative Functionalist poster for Ranniger Gloves

Lucian Bernhard's Informative Functionalist poster for Stiller Shoes

The train of his career was set in motion. This style became known as Informative Functionalism. The artworks became known as Sachplakat or “object-posters”. The influence of the orient, and in particular the iconic simplified and refined forms of Japanese woodcuts, is plain to see. The product was illustrated to look desirable and the message was a simple word association between the producer’s name and the aspirational image. This is a very similar conceptual approach to Apple’s today.

The new style became synonymous with Bernhard. His stylish, stacked logo can be seen inscribed on many of the posters. These were early days for the graphic design profession. Being relatively novel the producers could sign their work like fine artists.

The adoption of Informative Functionalism was echoed in the prevalence of Bernhard’s direct artful hand-lettering style throughout German design of the time. Foundries clamoured for these robust faces and a new career avenue opened for the designer. He went on to create an extensive list of diverse typeface designs:

• Bernhard Antiqua, 1911
• Bernhard Fraktur, 1912-22
• Bernhard Privat, 1919
• Bernhard Schonschrift, 1925-28
• Bernhard Handschrift, 1928
• Bernhard Fashion, 1929
• Bernhard Gothic, 1929-31
• Bernhard Negro, 1930
• Bernhard Lilli, 1930
• Bernhard Lucian, 1930
• Bernhard Tango, 1933
• Bernhard Moderna, 1933-38

A selection of fonts by Lucian Bernhard

In 1932 Bernhard upped sticks and moved to a USA that was not ready for him. His work was not well-received in a reprise of the German reticence from the early days of his career, it was felt to be too extreme, too harsh, in essence too modern. He began to move toward fine art. His paintings were very similar to Edward Hopper’s as he reacted to his new American life.

Catnap - painting by Lucian Bernhard

On the next page – the typeface’s origins and typographic details

Original content created by: The Inquisition