The Period As Statement

Women's Wear Daily reports today that The Wall Street Journal 's planned magazine, Pursuits, which is scheduled to launch in September, has been renamed WSJ. (That's W S J period). WWD quoted a Journal spokesman as saying:

"The three letters happen to be typographically quite pleasing. And its simplicity gives us enormous flexibility visually and semantically."

I haven't been able to track down the font yet, but it's worth noting that down to the period used WSJ., it's different from than The Wall Street Journal masthead type font. That style is Escrow, designed by Cyrus Highsmith, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. Tomaso Capuano, who designed the quarterly Times of London supplement, Times Luxx, is designing WSJ.
In an era in which video rules our lives, words are devalued and typography seems quainter than quill pens, this is a fabulous story. The Journal, in fact, always has placed a premium on typography since the paper until relatively recently was text heavy, black and white and ran few graphics. And to my knowledge, The Journal is the only newspaper in North America that puts a period at the end of its name.