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Gallery › Lettering and type

Released in Part

A typed 1962 memo about two lost cans of aerial film, its marking ruled through, its names blacked out, stamped and photocopied twice for release decades later.

Released in Part, a typed 1962 office memorandum on a twice-photocopied page: an office-use-only marking at the head and foot ruled through by a reviewer's pen, a memo header, six numbered paragraphs with a strikeover, an x-out and underlined words, two names covered by marker bars with an exemption code beside each, a received date stamp, a records-review box stamp with handwritten initials and date, a released-in-part stamp, a document number, a paper clip, punch holes, and handwritten initials and a note
Click the picture for the full-size render.

How it is made

Typed with tw-type on the /Typewriter font: an elite manual (/Pitch 12) at an even hand (/Wear 1.0 /MachineWear 0.4 /StrikeWear 0.5 /Ribbon 0.75, as *The Man from 2026* settled), so every strike is its own (the weave shows through the ink, edges feather, the q key's counter is clogged, a few letters land high or light) and no word fades. The memo header, the tab stops, a strikeover (<o>was|were</o>), an x-out, underscores and the redactions (<r>..</r>, drawn by rel-redact as marker bars) are markup in one text string; then tw-set types the office-use-only marking at the head and foot on the same frame, and a reviewer's ruled pen lines strike it out. rel-page wraps it all: aged and folded paper, two punch holes, a gem clip, the scanner's tilt and lamp, then two photocopy generations, which turn the paper to a grey haze with grain, add specks and the lid's shadow, give every mark a soft fringe, and erode the type's thin horizontals a little (/Copies 0.35 keeps its counters open). The stamps (received, records review, released in part, the exemption codes and the document number) and the handwritten initials, date and note (lib/handscript.ps) are marks on the page, so the copier copies them. The office, people, project, review board and exemption codes are invented.

Details

Category
Lettering and type
Tags
typewriter document
Libraries
artkit, handscript, released, surfacekit, typewriter, typewriter_outlines
Added
2026-10-14
Built in
issue #215
Page size
612 × 792 points

Source

View source the whole program in a scrolling window, or read gallery/released_memo.ps on GitHub. To draw it yourself, from a checkout of the repository:

pscat --page 612x792 gallery/released_memo.ps
The first 40 of 148 lines of the source 
%!PS-Adobe-3.0
%%Title: Released in Part -- a typed 1962 memo, reviewed, redacted and photocopied for release
%%BoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
%%EndComments

% A one-page office memorandum from an invented survey office, typed on an
% elite manual in 1962, then held in a file for decades: its office-use-only
% marking ruled through by a reviewer, two names redacted under an invented
% exemption scheme, a review stamp, a release stamp and a document number
% added, and the whole sheet photocopied twice on the way out. It is the
% released copy; *The Man from 2026* (gallery/time_traveler_memo.ps) is its
% opposite, a ribbon original that never left the file. Every name, office,
% project, place, stamp and code in it is made up.
%
%   lib/typewriter.ps  tw-type: the memo header, tab stops, a strikeover <o>,
%                      an x-out <x>, underscores <u> and redactions <r>, and
%                      the ribbon ink of an elite manual at an even hand
%                      (/Wear 1.0 /MachineWear 0.4 /StrikeWear 0.5, as #590
%                      settled; Machine 26 clogs only its 8 and q); then
%                      tw-set on the same frame for the marking at the head
%                      and foot. /Copies 0.35 keeps the type at a light
%                      first-copy loss (#547's erosion of thin horizontals,
%                      counters still open) while the page goes through two.
%   lib/released.ps    rel-page: aged paper, folds, punch holes, a gem clip,
%                      two copy generations (haze and grain, specks, the lid,
%                      a soft fringe on every mark), the stamps, the margin
%                      notes and marker redaction bars
%   lib/handscript.ps  the initials, the reviewer's mark and the margin note
%
%   { printf '2 2 scale\n'; cat gallery/released_memo.ps; } > /tmp/hi.ps
%   pscat --page 1224x1584 --png released_memo.png /tmp/hi.ps
%   gs -q -dNOSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=png16m -r144 -g1224x1584 \
%      -dGraphicsAlphaBits=4 -dTextAlphaBits=4 \
%      -sOutputFile=released_memo_gs.png gallery/released_memo.ps </dev/null

(lib/artkit.ps) run
(lib/surfacekit.ps) run
(lib/handscript.ps) run
(lib/typewriter_outlines.ps) run
(lib/typewriter.ps) run

On GitHub