I recently had cause to use some old Letraset I found during one of our recent Moonbase clear outs.
Its been years since I'd used Letraset and had to make sure I knew which side to rub on!
The rubbing I enjoyed but I found it nigh on impossible to line up the letters in a straight word. They were allover the place!
Still it was nice to do some rubbing again and it brought back memories of similar motions as a kid.
I remember sets called Action Transfers, which came with a colourful card background and a selection of transfers that could be rubbed down to stick on the card. Sadly none have stuck in my mind as time has rubbed out the memory although dinosaurs and space ships do ring a bell.
I also enjoyed rubbing transfers onto things like my arms and bedroom cupboard. Peace symbols, monsters, Kung Fu characters and so on. There were also water transfers which slid off when wet. The exact physics elude me now but I know I had some water transfers on the back of my hands at some point.
Further rubbing took place to create imprints of coins and flat brasses. In fact I think this art is called brass rubbing. A similar technique could also be used to rub a pencil over the imprint of hand-writing on a note pad to reveal what had been written previously. Very James Bond! Basildon Bond even!
Did you do any rubbing as a kid readers?
Letraset lettering was always used in Anderson vehicles and it is really hard to find those fonts now. Computers have made them obsolete.
ReplyDeleteThey must have had the patience of saints applying that Letraset to those vehicles Kev!
Deletein the U.S.Prestomagix was the equivalent of Letraset action transfers.those were fun,I totally enjoyed them.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great name Bri, Prestomagix! I know there was a Star wars one and Battlestar Galactica one too.
Deletei used letters and numbers at school,and "trasferelli",the italian version of Action transfers.. i remember a space set and a war set,pheraps d-day set.. EW
ReplyDeleteFascinating EW. Did you have the Star Wars set?
DeleteI loved Action Transfers as a kid, Woodsy. I remember having a Chicago gangster set and a Batman set. I'm think I had more, but can't say for sure. They were quietly absorbing and quite therapeutic. I guess they Kinda rubbed off on me as I graduated to Letraset for school projects :)
ReplyDeleteI loved them too Tone. Art as play was always quiet and thoughtful. I'm pretty sure there's a link between Action Transfers and the covers/ illustrations in the Sixties series of Thunderbirds papaerbacks by John Theydon. I seem to recall from research about 9 years ago that an Action Transfers expert told me that the same artist did the backing card illustrations too, one Peter Archer.
Delete