Mike Hinge Fonts Put Into Practice

Alex Jay has come up trumps again after finding these proof of fonts that he was working on for a holiday ad for toys, two of the fonts are Mike Hinge designs, unfortunately the advert got cancelled.

"Gobots!" is the font Hinge Integrated. "Robo-Toys" is the font ITC Machine (not a Mike Hinge font). "Time Machines" is the font Hinge Computer in italic.

Another example of a Mike Hinge font in practice is a cover mock-up for THRUST, which wasn't published., the source of the image he doesn't recall the website but it was possibly eBay.

Seeing the THRUST logo jogged Alex's memory. 

Alex writes, "Mike designed an alphabet based on the logo; digital watches were proliferating and that triggered a need for fonts in that style. I don't recall the name of the font but Mike sold it to PLINC; there must be a contract or agreement in Mike's files. Mike showed a few letters from the alphabet to me; the letters were drawn in outline. Mike said PLINC told him to draw the alphabet in outline; if solid letters were needed, they could easily be filled in. I don't know if this font was ever published in a PLINC catalogue".

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Mike Hinge - Parsec City 2 (2of4). Pen & Ink, pencil, white paint on heavy water colour paper. Approximate size 45x30cm. Date unknown. Unsigned.

Mike Hinge & Alex Jay - Future Visions

Alex Jay has kindly sent in some scans of some Logos that he & Mike produced in  March 1990, for a new publishing company, Future Visions, which focused on science fiction. 

Alex told me that he and Mike worked independently on the project and says "We had to explore two solutions: a one-line version and a two-line version. It's a rather long logo on a single line; sometimes difficult to show large enough, say on the spine of book or game box or in a narrow advertisement".

"We made our presentation and the poor fellow couldn't decide on one. Later on we received a modest kill fee".

Choose your favourite I think you might agree that they are all pretty amazing.

The Mike Hinge Reference

Our flight has been successful and we've docked on schedule at Parsec City, please have your library ticket at the ready to enter The Mike Hinge Reference...

Although nearly completed The Mike Hinge Reference is still undergoing construction so not everything is as it should and it will be some while yet until the library shelves are full. I hope you like it so far.

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Separate title on paper

Mike Hinge - Varuna Parsec City 1 (1of4). Pen & Ink on heavy water colour paper. Approximate size 45x30cm. Date unknown. Unsigned.

detail 1

detail 2

detail 3

The above image has an acetate overlay with very rough captions stuck on top. To me, it doesn't look like Mike would have done the text as the writing looks a bit uncharacteristic and it interferes with the illustration.

The text are quotes from poems by Aratos (310-245 BC) and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

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Mike Hinge - Springmaid (2 of 6). Marker pen on white paper. Approximate size 42x34cm. Date unknown. Unsigned.

Mike Hinge - Springmaid (3 of 6). Marker pen on white paper. Approximate size 46x55cm. Date unknown. Unsigned.

Mike Hinge - Springmaid (4 of 6). Marker pen on white paper. Approximate size 46x55cm. Date unknown. Unsigned.

Mike Hinge - Springmaid (5 of 6). Marker pen on white paper. Approximate size 55x46cm. Date unknown. Unsigned.

Mike Hinge - Springmaid (6 of 6). Marker pen on white paper. Approximate size 55x46cm. Date unknown. Unsigned.

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Mike Hinge - What's Cooking with Springmaid (1 of  6). Marker pen on white paper. Approximate size 42x34cm. Date unknown. Unsigned.


There have been quite a few very nice Mike Hinge pictures for sale on ebay recently. I hope some of you have managed to get a picture or two. I noticed that there was a really interesting piece an advertising storyboard for a Buick saloon car, perhaps quite rare as I am not aware of any filmed TV adverts Mike worked on apart from that one. Unfortunately I didn't get the piece as I would have liked to. I don't know if that Buick advert was just a concept piece or actually got made.

Now back to the Springmaid illustration this is one of six of a series of rough sketches for a Springmaid promotion. The series of illustrations are for a counter display box advertising a competition to be a model for Spring Mill's Springmaid (a fabric bed linen/clothes company). This I think is the type of advertising that Roger Hines pointed out that Mike did a lot of, point of purchase/sales promotion or POP that would be as Roger put it, "counter cards and displays for merchandise, kiosks, in store merchandising promotions".