This image of Darth Vader’s iconic head (technically, his mask) has been created out of the script of the original “Star Wars” movie, which is pretty cool.
I think this new drawing-in-text fad is kind of cool — it’s the new pointillism — but doomed to be a fad.
Still, the creator of this piece, David Johns, is offering very large poster prints for ya.
(via Geekologie)
Yes, I am aware that I am a bit of a typographile. But I can’t help slightly drooling over this letterpressed poster of full-on awesome. They call it a typography anatomy lesson, and it truly is — breaking out every piece of every letter with its proper name.
Here’s a look at the full poster:
They were — were! — on sale for $75 apiece, signed and wax-sealed, but they are sadly, sold out. I hope they do a new run, although I would definitely settle for a print rather than a signed original.
I love the detail, as cited on Ligature, Loop & Stem, where you could have bought one:
Typographers refer to elements of a letterform using a variety of terms that align naturally to architecture or the human body—eye, ear, foot, arm, lobe, leg—and we’ve captured many of them in this modernist-style limited edition print.
Each individually numbered 12″ × 16″ print is reproduced in Toronto by Neil Wismayer at Lunar Caustic Press on 130lb Strathmore Natural White wool finish stock in black and PMS187 red inks. Prints are hand stamped with an official red LL&S wax seal.
There are a number of close-ups (poster porn?) at Flickr, where one of the creators, Grant Hutchinson, has a small photostream.
The concept of a World’s Fair seems somehow anachronistic to me, like the byproduct of a more optimistic era.
That said, I love the idea of a World’s Fair. But apparently the Olympics have kind of won out the battle for international event of note.
So it was kind of nice to see promotions for World’s Fairs that never were. To experiment with some of the new typography possibilities with online open fonts, the Friends Of Mighty have created online “posters” of sorts for Atlantis (1962), El Dorado (1924) and the Moon (2040).
They’re fun to scroll through — but work best (actually might work only) in a modern browser. So if you’re stuck at work on IE6, I’m very, very sorry.
I particularly like scrolling all the way down to Atlantis, and watching the little man in the elevator tube come too. But, at the Moon, it was neat to actually stretch out your browser window, left and right, to see an astronaut appear and disappear.
Cool stuff!
Jerod Gibson makes posters based on movies, posters that take one iconic image — say, a bar of soap — and then fill them with iconic quotes.
I like. Besides Fight Club, he’s also done Clerks, The Hangover, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Star Wars … and I like his take on The Goonies, below.
Hit the jump if you want to see The Simpsons and Pulp Fiction. Or see them all at his site, where he continues to post new ones regularly and where you can buy prints for $25 or $30. Worth it!
It’s like a Mobius strip of art imitating life imitating art.
A couple of years ago, a font designer looking for inspiration felt drawn to a neon sign outside a deli:
He blogged extensively about the process of turning a few letters of neon into a full-blown font, but in the end he was happy with the result, a font he called Deliscript, in honour of its origins.
Not only was he happy, but Deliscript was a winner in the Type Director’s Club font design competition “TDC² 2010”. So it’s a pretty good font.
Then, something weird happened: he got a call from one of the deli’s owners. She had Googled the name of the deli, and had found the designer’s font.
She wanted to hire him to design the graphics for a gourmet food van, which would be associated with the restaurant.
Read the whole story at the AIGA Los Angeles site.
Last week, I happened across a post by Ben Terrett about how many times you would have to print the word “helvetica” — set in Helvetica, of course, at 100 pt — in order to reach from the Earth to the Moon. The answer he found, was 2,826,206,643.42.
That, I thought, was awesome.
But the ever-reliable Jason Kottke took it one step further.
What, he thought, about doing it the other way? How big would a “helvetica” have to be, if it were to stretch from the Earth to the Moon in just one step?
From the Earth (nudged up against the h) to the Moon (lined up with the tail on the a) is exactly one “helvetica” — if that is set in 282.6 billion pt. Yikes
Kottke calculates that “the ‘h’ would be 44,600 miles tall, roughly 5.6 times as tall as the Earth.”
Whoa.
(Amy posted this song — to my delight — a couple of days ago. Need a refresher? Click here.)
Dear Cee-Lo,
For the last few days, your song has been stuck in my head, and I love it. However, there are three things about it that are just completely and utterly wrong:
1. You have made me a racist.
Thanks to you and your rhyme for “gold-digger” I find myself humming “nigga” about 40 or 50 times a day. Thanks, Cee-Lo. It’s not so bad when it’s part of a lyric that just bops along in my head, but the other day, on the treadmill at the gym, my iPod died, and I started bopping along to “Fuck You” in my head — terrified the whole time that I would start saying it out loud by accident. I should not say “nigga” at the gym.
2. You shouldn’t trust a computer to do smart quotes.
The dynamic typography in your video is pretty cool — but there are crappy little errors that just take me right out of it. Here’s one:
Apostrophes matter, Cee-Lo! And, really, they should be hanging out to the left of the paragraph, too, but I’m letting that one slide since there is hanging punctuation elsewhere in the video. But correctly facing it is just elementary.
3. There is nothing shameful about an Atari. That shit’s money.
Other than those three things, your song is wonderful. Thank-you.
Sincerely,
Grant Hamilton
Oh, I was thrilled to see that there was a poster enumerating 34 of the deadliest sins in typography. But oh, I was bummed to see that the initial printing was sold out!
In fairness, they only printed 38. There may be a second printing.
Anyway, in the meantime, you can read the full list of 34 here, where you can also download a high-resolution pdf of the poster, which looks like this:
(via Casual Optimist)
They’re called Typestaches, and the poster was laid out by a girl named Tor (no seriously, that’s what her blog is called).
She is also selling an 18″x24″ print of the poster for just $24.
Buy it for me?
Gradually, I’m being sucked further and further into the world of type-geek-ology.
The latest proof? I dreadfully want to take this postgraduate certificate in typography design:
Top industry professionals lead a focused and comprehensive study of key typeface design principles: technique, technology, aesthetics, expression, history, and theory.
Students explore the foundation of typography in depth by creating their own typefaces in hands-on workshops, while developing a broad understanding of the field through lectures, discussions, and research. A series of guest lectures round out the curriculum, allowing students deeper insight into specific relevant topics. Electives are offered each term focusing on topics such as pen and brush lettering, Python programming, and non-Latin alphabets.
Participants leave the program with the specialized skills to design professional quality digital typefaces and lettering.
It’s offered weekends and evenings this fall, but sadly, you actually have to attend the New York campus of the Cooper Union college for 10 weeks. Why can’t it be offered online? Although, hmmmm, 10 weeks in New York ….
Like many jobs, journalism can be very exciting. But it can also feature long stretches of tedium. People deal with that tedium in different ways.
One of the things my mother taught me was that, if you’re bored, you can try making up a little game to help you with your task. It never worked with the dishes, but I think the key is to make your game somewhat subversive.
That’s what Top Gear star James May did, when he used to work for Autocar magazine. He was fired in 1992 for his little game, which came to him when he was faced with putting together a ridiculously boring supplement.
The game? Using drop caps to spell out a hidden message:
If you add the right punctuation, it says “So you think it’s really good, yeah? You should try making the bloody thing up. It’s a real pain in the arse.”
Which, I’ll bet, is true.
Confession time: I’ve done the same thing myself. Although never with drop caps.
You can read a little bit more about the episode on his Wikipedia page, from which I got the image.
(thanks, Andrea!)
This video hits me right in the sweet spot of my slightly erotic love for fonts.
The only thing I dislike is the hero of the piece.
(Thanks, Ally!)
This is the newest addition to my daily blog-check: ShitAmpersand.com
Yes, it’s a posting of the worst examples of typography — as exemplified by the & symbol.
I’m no type designer, but I know enough about type design to know that, when you’re constrained by the limits of x-height and regular descenders, you can bust loose with the ampersand. It’s where all your creativity can really be expressed (that and swashes, but no one really cares about swashes).
Anyway, I have a feeling that typographers express themselves in ampersand designs kind of like drunks — there are happy drunks and there are angry drunks. And there are awesome ampersands and, well, shit ampersands. Like this one:
Gigi: I had Calamari for a starter last night it was very nice. In future that dish will be forever ruined after witnessing this ampersand.
Why yes, I do like the cover of this Psychedelic Furs album. I just wish I knew what the typeface was that they were using on it.
Oh wait — there’s a website for that?
Yes, in case you’re not typophile enough to know at a glance what font choice your favourite rock star has picked, you can check out Rock That Font. It’s a blog that’s just getting started, but it’s one of those ones you hope will be around for a while.
Here’s what they say about “All of this and nothing,” above:
At a time when most were watching Miami Vice and sporting Hypercolor, the Psychedelic Furs’ 1988 compilation All of This and Nothing delivers a minimalist black and white composition to near perfection. No bright attention-grabbing neons or funky typefaces here. Simply Univers in all lowercase (likely Univers 49 Light Ultra Condensed with tightened tracking). The neo-grotesque sans-serif was originally designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1954 and released by the French foundry Deberny & Peignot in 1957.
As any graphic designer worth his or her salt knows, Frutiger’s numbering system was first used with Univers and adopted for use in the Frutiger, Avenir, and Neue Helvetica families. (The number used is a concatenation of two numbers: the first set defines weight and the second defines width and position.)
Ahhh, ’tis a blog that speaks to me.
The League of Moveable Type showcases open-source typefaces. They hand-pick ‘em and sometimes they even design ‘em. There are some really sweet fonts over there, and although it’s not a huge collection, even single one of them looks professional (often, not something you get when browsing “free” font repositories).
According to their manifesto, they’re not trying to wreck the business model of type foundries or designers, instead they’re just trying to encourage people to give back to the community. Like when lawyers do pro bono work.
As someone who has pirated a ton of software, but now prefers to either pay or to use an open-source solution, I like the idea of typography joining this world.
Thanks, League of Moveable Type. I will feature some of your typefaces in my future work.
