Everyone loves/hates the Olympics!

August 13, 2004 9:09 AM

Free the Olympukes. Fontshop, the 500-lb gorilla of type foundries, has released Jonathan Barnbrook's Olympukes dingbat font - which does a good job of reconciling the love/hate relationship many of us have with this most constructed of all sports events - for free. Barnbrook is the politically savage designer behind the Virus typefoundry, and is probably most well-known for collaborations with Damien Hirst and the typefaces Exocet and Mason (which was originally called Manson – and "intended to speak of the uncomfortable associations between elegance and violence" – but was renamed Mason in a fit of pique marketing), which are sold through the fine folks at Emigre.
posted by luriete (8 comments total)

My favorites are the icons for "abuse of human rights ignored by host country," "watching olympics purely for sexual purposes," "stadium build with use of slave labor," "obscure crap sports" and "female athlete that used to be a man."
posted by luriete at 11:09 AM on August 13, 2004

very good! : >
posted by amberglow at 11:11 AM on August 13, 2004

Hehe... curling (that's the letter W in the font).
posted by Krrrlson at 11:16 AM on August 13, 2004

Hey! How did this cultural commentary get in my font!?

Seriously, this is a wonderfully subversive creation.
posted by quadog at 11:43 AM on August 13, 2004

Thanks!
posted by dobbs at 12:23 PM on August 13, 2004

A while ago I found the FF Legato font – beautiful, useful, but I can't afford to buy fonts just for fun. When I followed the link I found out that FontFont right now offers it for free for a limited time, as well as Baskerville Old Style. Got 'em both. Thanks luriete!
posted by Termite at 12:31 PM on August 13, 2004

Excellent post, thanks.
posted by btwillig at 4:51 PM on August 13, 2004

I love fonts
posted by Grod at 12:17 AM on August 14, 2004