Bullet Typeface

In 1999, my wife and I were on vacation in Washington, D.C. and she convinced me that we should drive up I-95 and visit the House Industries office in Delaware. I was a huge House super fan, even though I sort of knew them because they were “selling” Housecopy. (Note: there were no sales of Housecopy.) I was awkward and nervous, but everyone pretended not to be annoyed by my inane questions. As we were leaving, I asked Andy if House “took commissions.” What I mean was, “Do you make typefaces for clients like Matthew Carter, Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones do? I love seeing those projects.” Andy thought I meant, “Do you have something I can work on?” Rich overheard this and shouted, “Give him the Pop Art font!” The “Pop Art font” was some lettering Ken had drawn that customers kept calling House about. Andy handed me some papers and told me to send a proof when it was ready. I was too embarrassed to say that they misunderstood what I meant, so I said I would, we left and I had a panic attack in the car. I somehow stumbled through making this thing and Ken and I sent proofs back and forth via FedEx. House eventually released it with the name “Global” but someone threatened to sue them for using that name so they renamed it “Bullet.” It ended up being used by NASCAR, Disney and a whole bunch of xxxtreme brands. A year or so later, House offered me my dream job. It was the best miscommunication of my life. (Margie, you were right.)