Brought to You By the Number

Brought to you by the number: 9
Eccentric, Regular, number 9

Generally speaking, I stay away from the typeface Eccentric. It is a caps-only typeface with a really high x height. It's the sort of typeface that is instantly recognizable; thus, making it more difficult to use as it's not just a blank canvas to be painted (designed) on. Eccentric has its own personality, which with a name like Eccentric is to be expected.

But when I was looking for a number to do this post, Eccentric's number 9 immediately struck me. In my odd mind it reminds me of an abstract rendering of a cartoon whale with it's overly large, oblong bowl for the body and it's bracketed serif as the tail. Now, I don't think this hidden gem makes Eccentric a better typeface necessarily, especially since cartoon-like, and large and whale-like is not representative of the typeface. Not to mention, the 9's oversized bowl is actually in the opposite fashion of the rest of Eccentric that has incredibly high waisted x-heights. However, Eccentric's number 9 is a great enough shape that I'm glad Eccentric, in all it's quirkiness and personality, exists at all.

Courtesy of myfonts.com, itcfonts.com:
Design Foundry: Unknown
Designer: Gustav F. Schroeder
Date: 1881
Classification: Decorative, Art Nouveau

"Eccentric is an all-capital, narrow-bodied, monoline display face that could be described as high waisted. With cross-bars and main junctures more than halfway up the letterforms, every letter - except the W - has a long-legged appearance. Eccentric has a wide range of display uses, from playbills to fashion advertisements."
Awesome find on Eccentric: There was a typophile.com blog thread about what typefaces would best suit historical figures, and someone said that Charlie Chaplin was totally Eccentric. And if you click here, you'll see CC's name in Eccentric as well as a CC poster that really matches well with Eccentric. It's very cool to see such a strong personality (Eccentric) pair up with something else -- I suppose only an equally strong personality would suffice.