Stephenson Blake Grotesque No. 3

One of the typefaces I acquired on a 2012 trip to Montreal was a one I labelled simply “36 pt. Sans Serif” once I got it home.Longtime readers will recall the typeface from my pieces You Are On Mute, and Furiously Curious.Today, in an effort that was part satisfying shopcraft, and part procrastination, I set out to vacuum out that type case, using a DRY Inc. vacuum cleaner attachment. Once I’d removed each letter, vacuumed out its cubby hole, and replaced each letter, I set out to identify the face.It turned out not to be that hard. The typeface, which I have in all-caps in two weights, has several distinctive letters: Q, G, M, W and J are all quirky. I mean, look at this Q, it’s fantastic:The big help, though, was the pin mark:If you zoom way in to the mark on top you will see that it reads “Stephenson Blake,” which identifies the British foundry where it was designed and cast. From there all it took was a flip through the foundry’s catalog to find a match, Stephenson Blake Grotesque…