Typeface based on sculpture becomes motorized sculpture. The (European) typeface
Jigsaw, “which was inspired by sculpture,” finds a use in typesetting the names of donors to a (U.S.) regional arts council. “A motorized disk contains approximately 2,000 names.... Pushing an initial letter on the control panel allows the viewer to find a particular name. The disk rotates and stops at the requested letter and displays all the names corresponding to the requested letter by backlighting them with white LEDs.” (
Gallery;
Vimeo video.)
[more inside]
posted by joeclark
on Jul 10, 2011 -
12 comments
The Museum of Modern Art
announced this week it would induct 23 digital-era typefaces into its permanent collection (
Times coverage). But what do the
designers of these fonts
look like? Pics or it didn’t happen:
first set;
second.
posted by joeclark
on Jan 26, 2011 -
34 comments
The Art of Hermann Zapf film "was produced in 1967 at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City and in my design studio in Dreieichenhain, Germany... After long discussions and the help of a lot of alcohol
we started late in the night. I was sitting at a slanted glass table with a hot spotlight in my neck. Frank Robinson was lying on the floor with the camera ready for a frog-view shot. My task was to write beautiful letters with ink which dried as soon the pen touched the slippery surface of an astralon sheet." —
Hermann Zapf
posted by netbros
on Jan 23, 2011 -
16 comments
Why does Futura work here but Slanted Futura doesn't? Enter
FONTS IN USE: A breakdown, explanation and appreciation of type design out in the real world.
posted by The Whelk
on Jan 3, 2011 -
17 comments
Canter’s Deli font comes full circle. Graphic designer makes actual typeface family out of casual script seen on sign for classic L.A. deli, Canter’s. (
Wins award!) Youngest, hippest member of the family that owns the diner later independently Googles
"Canter's Deli" + font, locates type designer, then hires him to custom-design a Canter’s “gourmet food truck.” “[W]hat was interesting to me was that this whole scenario could not have happened without the magic of the Internet and search engines.”
posted by joeclark
on Sep 13, 2010 -
37 comments
Fraktur mon amour: Ruud Linssen’s
Book of War, Mortification and Love is a collection of “essays on voluntary suffering” that works as a specimen of the
Fakir blackletter typeface issued by merry pranksters Underware. Bored already? Well, try this on for size: It’s “printed in the author’s blood.”
posted by joeclark
on Aug 18, 2010 -
12 comments
Not necessarily “naïve”; more like “vernacular.” Jules Vernacular posts dozens of photos of vernacular or unschooled signage on French buildings (in the site’s punning slogan,
lettres œuvrières et incongruités typographiques). As ever, it’s amazing that this typography, most of it hand-drawn, hasn’t been wiped out by progress and regularized into Arial (or the Arial of 2010, Papyrus).
[more inside]
posted by joeclark
on Mar 20, 2010 -
18 comments
John Mayer gets some really bitchin’ typography. House Industries (last MeFi mention:
1999!) designs a limited-edition tour poster for the crooner who constantly steals the show on
TMZ. “[U]ntil they come up with a JPEG format that makes metallics shimmer like a
Solid Gold dancer’s outfit, there just isn’t a substitute for physically walking around a serigraph and watching the light bouncing off metallic and fluorescent inks.”
[more inside]
posted by joeclark
on Feb 25, 2010 -
35 comments
What type are you? (password: character) Step into
Pentagram's psychoanalyst's office, and let him diagnose your type. 'Researched over seven years with a team of 23 academics across Eastern Europe, ‘What Type Are You’ asks the four key character questions of our day, analyses your responses in exceptional detail and recommends one of 16 typefaces as a result. The recommendation is sometimes controversial but always unerringly true. Said one respondent, “At first I felt angry when I was told my type is Pistilli Roman but two weeks later, I was completely reconciled to it. Now I wonder why I ever thought I was a Gill Sans.”'
posted by heatherann
on Jan 11, 2010 -
126 comments
Stelae for 7/7. The London 7/7 Memorial consists of “52 pillars (or ‘stelae’), cast in rough textured stainless steel, each representing one of the victims” of the 2005 terrorist bombing attack. Typographer Phil Baines (
profile) explains the development of the rough-hewn yet “British” typeface, based on “the 19th-century, untutored signmakers’ sansserif you see on buildings around the city,” that is moulded into the living steel.
posted by joeclark
on Jul 8, 2009 -
15 comments
Tart cards [NSFW] are the means by which many London prostitutes advertise their services. Step into almost any central London phone box and you can contemplate up to 80 cards inviting you to be tied, teased, spanked or massaged.... [Wallpaper Magazine] asked designers – from students to superstars – to find the tart hiding in every typeface and create their own graphic numbers.... all 450 cards can be viewed
here.
[NSFW] [more inside]
posted by carsonb
on Jun 26, 2009 -
39 comments
Stereotypes -- Derided by typophiles as crass, "ethnic type" has a revealing taxonomy and, surprisingly, serves a purpose.
posted by cog_nate
on Jun 19, 2009 -
66 comments
"I want our type to jump, scream, whisper and dance..." Ebon Heath and His Visual Poetry.
"When I close my eyes I can see the words of great poets like Rakem or Tupac flying thru the air and dancing with the same physicality my body instinctually feels. My mobiles attempt to create a visual sense of rhythm and flow that is alive, not contained." This
interview with Heath breaks down his
Stereo.type and
Purge projects.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on May 30, 2009 -
8 comments
Decodeunicode.org has a useful and full-featured search for the names and glyphs for those Unicode characters that display as a plain box full of despair. It is presented by the Department of Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz. Roll the dice
⚅⚄ and try it out.
[more inside]
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim
on Jan 23, 2009 -
25 comments
FontStruct lets you quickly and easily create fonts constructed out of geometrical shapes, which are arranged in a grid pattern, like tiles or bricks. Once you're done building, FontStruct generates high-quality TrueType fonts, ready to use in any Mac or Windows application.
posted by Dave Faris
on Apr 12, 2008 -
21 comments
