Thursday May 29, 2008 / Filed under: Links
Font Nerd x Star Wars Nerd = This
Via Daring Fireball.
Thursday March 20, 2008 / Filed under: Links
My Brain Hurts
Today I found a photo on Flickr taken by Joe Pemberton, one of the founders of Typophile.com, of his computer monitor displaying a freeze frame from the making-of section of the DVD “The Call of Cthulhu” showing director/producer Andrew Leman, who also makes typographic props and contacted me years ago in response to my Typecasting article, wearing my winning design from the 2002 Typophile t-shirt contest.
Thursday February 14, 2008 / Filed under: Links
"The Dating Game" for Fonts
In honor of Valentine’s Day, Extensis has posted a silly little game called TYPEmatching wherein you attempt to find romantic match ups between common typefaces.
Thursday December 20, 2007 / Filed under: Links
Arial Exam
Ever notice how the font name “Arial” looks like a certain other word sometimes? (Via DaughterNumberThree)
Thursday October 25, 2007 / Filed under: Links
A "Tribute to Men and Women Who Design"
Here is a cool thing that reader “minusf” wrote to me about recently: A half-hour film made by Chevrolet in 1958 called “American Look.” You can see it, split into three parts, on YouTube:
It’s pretty heavy on pro-America/pro-Chevy propaganda, but it’s also a revealing glimpse into a world when most everything was still designed with simple art materials like pastel crayons and clay.
In the third part, they build a design prototype of a ’59 Chevy out of plywood and clay. This was the car my family had when I was a little kid. To me it looked like a scary, angry animal. Little did I know they were going after “sleek and stylish.”
The pre-Fifties world seems to have been erased in the film. People live in thoroughly modern houses, have thoroughly modern furniture and appliances, and work in thoroughly modern buildings. Nothing old seems to exist.
I must have seen a lot of propaganda like this when I was a kid. I fully expected that the world would look like this when I grew up. But in reality, old and new have always lived side-by-side, and probably always will. (I love it when films that are set in the future, like Blade Runner, get this right.)
A lot of the design in the film still holds up well, like the Eames chair. But every now and then they show something that looks utterly old-fashioned—unsurprisingly, anything to do with electronics, appliances and business machines, which have changed radically over the last fifty years. On the other hand, the design requirements for chairs, spoons, and drinking glasses are pretty fixed.
Friday October 12, 2007 / Filed under: Links
New Kid on the Block
I just recently became aware of a new type-related site called I Love Typography. It’s only been around about two months, but it’s already shaping up to be one of the best.
What’s different about iLT from other type sites is its emphasis on longer articles, particularly ones covering typographic fundamentals. Readers may also comment, but that’s a secondary element. The venerable Typographica promised to do this a few years ago, but, for whatever reason, it didn’t really work out. (To be fair, I still love Typographica. It’s been a little quiet, but things have been picking up.) In any case, iLT’s author, John Boardley, has picked up the baton and run with it. It’s a great start and I wish him best of luck.
Saturday July 28, 2007 / Filed under: Links
Buildings + Sky = Font
An alphabet made from the negative space between buildings as you look up at them. (From Slanted via Boing Boing.)
Monday May 7, 2007 / Filed under: Links
An Interview? Moi?
Jean-Christophe Loubet del Bayle has just posted an interview with me on the French typography webzine, Planet Typography. (Si vous préférez le lire en français, voici l’interview et le webzine.) (I had no idea I could speak French so well.)
Monday April 24, 2006 / Filed under: Links
Daisy, Daisy
Kevin Savetz has just posted MP3 files of the “First Philadelphia Computer Music Festival,” an LP released in 1979 by Creative Computing magazine, on vintagecomputermusic.com. If you are a fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey and have wondered why HAL sings “A Bicycle Built For Two” when he is being disconnected, check out the last track, recorded in 1963.
Wednesday May 18, 2005 / Filed under: Links
This Just Handed to Me...
I’ve been invited by Addison Hall to participate in this “musical baton” thing that’s being passed from blog to blog. I’m a good sport, so here goes:
Total volume of music on my computer: 10.09GB, 2,572 songs, 6.5 days worth.
The last CD I bought was: Escondida, by Jolie Holland. Already among my favorite albums.
Song playing right now: None. I actually don’t usually listen to music while I work (this is working?). On the other hand, I do like to listen to stuff from the Fresh Air archives while I work.
Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:
Well, these don’t all necessarilly mean a lot to me, but they are a few of my favorites…
Cheminant A La Ville, by Kate & Anna McGarrigle. I know some french so I can almost understand this song. Plus, it’s beautiful.
Communication Breakdown, by Led Zeppelin. Best played very loud.
Jealous Guy, by John Lennon. My favorite Lennon song.
Free Money, by Patti Smith. I love her early stuff.
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go, by Madeleine Peyroux. Great cover of an old Bob Dylan song.
Five People to Whom I am Passing the Baton:
Typographica (either Stephen or Josh)
Tuesday November 16, 2004 / Filed under: Links
A Few of My Favorite Links
I discovered Todd Dominey’s What Do I Know weblog a while back among the hundreds of sites listed on Movable Type’s old Donors’ page (R.I.P.). I thought, “Well there’s an interesting name.” It turned out to be an interesting site, too. I always look forward to reading what Todd has to say. Great links.
I know. Everybody knows about Jeffrey Zeldman’s blog. It’s still one of my favorites. I discovered it when he linked to one of my articles a couple of years ago. He hasn’t been writing much lately due to the fact that he just became a father. I can’t blame him at all, but I hope he manages to drag himself back to his keyboard soon. Closely linked to Zeldman is A List Apart—essential reading for anyone who creates websites.
Illustrator and designer John Martz’s Robot Johnny weblog is a recent addition to my short list. I discovered it when John added my Notebook blog to his links page. Robot Johnny is every bit as fun and interesting as I hope my site is. In fact, it’s a bit eerie how many interests we have in common. I’ve come to realize that on the internet this sort of thing is inevitable.
Thursday October 21, 2004 / Filed under: Links
Lego Follow-up
My item about using Legos to help scan old film fonts generated a surprising amount of interest. One of the most fascinating places that linked to it is a site called Sensory Impact. Just about everything there is interesting to me, but two items in particular that caught my attention were Dilbert’s Ultimate House and Pong Mechanik.
Tuesday September 14, 2004 / Filed under: Links
The 60 Minutes Bush Memo Thing
I’ve been getting a number of emails lately from people wanting to know what I think of the recent controversy surrounding some documents shown on 60 Minutes concerning President Bush’s military record which are said to be from around 1972. I’m not going to comment on it here, but I and many others have been expressing our opinions about it on Typographica where Scott Stowell posted an item about it last Friday.
I will say one thing: I don’t know as much about 1970s typewriters as I’d like to. Typewriters are like type in the way that bicycles are like motorcycles. Being an expert on one doesn’t necessarily mean you know much about the other.
Thursday August 5, 2004 / Filed under: Links
More Type-related Links
Cheshire Dave’s Mastication Is Normal is home of the famous Behind the Typeface: Cooper Black, a clever spoof of VH1’s Behind the Music series. Cheshire’s latest production, Carved In Stone, is a murder mystery revolving around the typeface Trajan. It was premiered at TypeCon2004 in San Francisco and, hopefully, will be viewable online soon.
Jon Coltz is a statistics guy who discovered type at some point and has been writing about it on daidala. Jon has absorbed a massive amount of knowledge about the subject for someone who is not in the design profession (he won the type trivia contest at TypeCon this year). He is also a very entertaining and engaging writer. Be sure to check out the interviews.
David Earl’s UK-based Typographer.org has gone through several incarnations over the years. When I first discovered it, it was an online magazine with articles about type and featured several writers. Then it changed into a type news blog for a while. A couple of years ago, it changed again and David has scaled back to posting an in-depth article every now and then.
Monday July 19, 2004 / Filed under: Links
Type Designers Who Write
Nick Shinn, a talented type designer based in Toronto, regularly posts essays about type and design on his site which have appeared in various design magazines. My favorite is “The Golden Age of Lettering” (big surprise).
Peter Bilak, creator of the extensive Fedra family and based in The Hague, has a large collection of critical essays and articles on his foundry’s website, many written by him. He also co-founded dot-dot-dot magazine. When does this guy have time to design type?
Los Angeles-based illustrator, lettering artist and type designer Leslie Cabarga is also a prolific writer. His first book, which he started writing as a teenager, is still the definitive history of the Fleischer Brothers animation studio. In his latest book, Logo, Font, and Lettering Bible, he seems to reveal all the tricks in his bag. Highly recommended.
Friday July 16, 2004 / Filed under: Links
Some Old Friends of Mine
David Steinlicht is a graphic designer and illustrator here in St. Paul. He also does some very funny cartoons on his website, allsmall.net. Not to be missed is his series called On My High Horse, which is a bit like a blog in cartoon form (though I’m sure David would never call it that).
Dan Picasso (yes, that’s his real name) is an illustrator who divides his time between Marathon, Texas and Minneapolis. He’s something of an old car buff (he owns a ‘56 Olds 88 that looks like it just drove off a showroom floor) and does his illustrations the old-fashioned way, with an air-brush, paint and paper.
Alfredo Zelcer was my boss when I worked as a designer on TWA Ambassador magazine many years ago. His website is a recent development and shows just a tiny glimpse of his talent.
Monday July 12, 2004 / Filed under: Links
Inspiration
Here are a few of the people and places on the web that inspire me, in no particular order:
Not only does Coudal Partners site look great, it’s a goldmine of inspiration due mainly to their vast collection of interesting links (Fresh Signals), and their Museum of Online Museums.
Brian Taylor’s Rustboy site chronicles the process of making a computer-generated movie on one’s own. What amazes me more than Taylor’s obvious talent is his resourcefulness. He reminds me that it’s not the tools as much as how you use them.
Even though I’m not particularly into comics, I will read just about anything by Scott McCloud. His book, Understanding Comics, helps you understand a lot more than comics. I also enjoy following his Morning Improv in which he creates comic strips based on titles submitted by readers.
Friday July 9, 2004 / Filed under: Links
Solipsistic
I can’t figure out what this is or how I happened to get a link there, but it is strangely beautiful to look at. I feel like I’ve stumbled into someone’s subconcious. The links in the text are worth investigating.
Friday July 9, 2004 / Filed under: Links
30-inch PowerBook
A 17-inch PowerBook is one thing, but this is going too far.
Thursday July 8, 2004 / Filed under: Links
Handy Type Links
Here are a couple of my favorite type-related places on the web:
Typophile Forums is where most of the action is taking place these days. From newbies to seasoned type designers, they’re all here talking about type. I especially like hanging around the Type I.D. Board, where everybody wins as type nerds from all over the world compete to see who can identify typefaces the fastest.
Unlike Typophile, Typographica is a group blog featuring news and items of interest about type and typography. Fierce debates are sometimes lurking in the comments. Tip: You can always tell what topics are hot by watching the “Commented” box in the right column. Chief editor Stephen Coles promises more substantial features (like my recent interview with veteran type designer Phil Martin) to come.
Monday July 5, 2004 / Filed under: Links
Design Blogs
Some design blogs I like:
Armin Vit’s wonderful Speak Up is as interesting to read as it is beautiful to look at. Outstanding on both accounts.
Foreword is mainly concerned with book design. I really like the regular “covers I like” feature.
The Design Observer was created by Michael Bierut, William Drenttel, Jessica Helfand, and Rick Poynor. How can you beat credentials like that?