Friday, April 16, 2010

Remember the Golden Crescent?


Here's that Golden Cresent logo artwork that I referenced earlier today. It ran every day on the Journal's "Page of Opinion" for years. I'm not sure when the whole concept of an Ohio "Golden Crescent" petered out. Maybe it was dropped in the recession of the early 1980's, when things weren't all that golden anymore in Lorain.

The artwork is kind of interesting, because Lorain is identified with a star, as well as being the only city whose name is in all caps. (If I was in one of the other cities, I'd have been annoyed!) What's nice is that the Journal was proud of its Lorain roots back then and was a cheerleader for the city. Now, it tries to be the morning newspaper for not only Lorain County, but parts of Cuyahoga, Erie and beyond. As a result, it's lost its 'Lorain' flavor, in my opinion.

The artwork is also interesting to me, because it dates back to the days of old-fashioned paste-up, when the various art elements for a newspaper page were literally assembled and glued down onto white art board, ready to be shot with a graphics art camera. Logos that were used a lot, such as the one shown above, might start to get a little bedraggled after a while, and a new copy might be made from second-generation artwork. As a result, the type would start to plug up on the copy of a copy. That's why "Sheffield Lake" looks like it says "Sheffield Lobe."

Incidentally... do you get the impression that the addition of North Ridgeville to the map was an afterthought?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was wondering what the meaning of the "golden crescent" is. Why this term was applied to this area. What the background related to the use of this term.