A photo collection of the Space Alphabet, a children’s book from the 1960s. “M is for the moon, a dead, dead world.” [via coudal]
Category: design
Something I learned today: I was reading this NYT article about fashion, and I discovered that if you double-click a word in an NYT article, it will make a pop-up with a little dictionary/ reference search for you. Doesn’t look like it works on the home page, but that’s pretty cool. Am I the last person to learn about this?
Michael Surtees has shared a short recap and a great collection of photos of Alphabet/City, a typographical tour of New York City led by Tobias Frere-Jones.
Today’s Layer Tennis match between Kevin Cornell and Shaun Inman has been a ton of fun. Volley 9 just went up, I’d say Kevin has the upper hand. Can’t wait to see how it ends. And I wonder if Kevin and Shaun have had any offline trash-talking in the background…
These bed sheets have markings to let couples know who is hogging.
Someone took fantastic notes from an Edward Tufte seminar last month in Chicago.
Khoi Vinh made a flowchart for how his dog thinks.
Joe Clark has written an impressive, in-depth article that explores of the (mis)use of typography in the Toronto subway system.
I wish I was going to VizThink ’08.
Layer Tennis is coming: “Two artists (or two small teams of artists) will swap a file back and forth in real-time, adding to and embellishing the work. Each artist gets fifteen minutes to complete a “volley” and then we post that to the site. A third participant, a writer, provides play-by-play commentary on the action, as it happens. The matches last for ten volleys and when it’s complete, everyone visiting the site votes for a winner.”
Helvetica is finally coming to Atlanta in November, courtesy of AIGA-Atlanta. The screening will be at the Rich Theatre in the Woodruff Arts Center, followed by a conversation with director Gary Hustwit.
Galileo’s sunspot illustrations
Back in the summer of 1612, Galileo did a series of daily observations of the sun. His illustrations were reproduced in his Letters on Sunspots of 1613. The work, part of an ongoing scientific battle with Christoph Scheiner, settled a lot of the contemporary debate on sunspots, killing the idea that the sun had minor satellites and proving our universe just a bit more imperfect.
My weekend project: I took those 35 drawings and put them into a big mosaic of sunspots.1 Sort of a comic strip approach. Not as dynamic as a movie, but then again I can’t frame a movie and mount it on my wall. If you’re so inclined, I also have a giant sunspot mosaic PDF to share with you—20 inches on a side. I had a ton of fun with this thing.
———
1. The original scans came from the rare book collection of Owen Gingerich via The Galileo Project. Dr. Gingerich was also kind enough to spare a few minutes on the telephone. Great guy.
Jonathan Corum created a Personal Injury Warning System: “Each symbol is based on an injury I have received, and indexed by the date that I would have benefitted from such a warning.”
An introduction to OpenType. And now I understand.
I would very much like to own a Monome 256. It looks like just the kind of wonderful toy I need* these days. They mentioned the beautiful woodwork was from Atlanta—I wonder if that’s Matt Soorikian‘s craftmanship?
*i.e., want
An interview with Michael Cook, who explores municipal drain systems and other subterranean infrastructure.
Even people I know who self-identify as urban explorers arenÄôt at all that interested in undergrounding Äì especially not in storm drains. A lot of them just donÄôt see the actual interest. ItÄôs not a detail-rich environment. You can walk six kilometers underground through nearly featureless pipe—and thereÄôs not something to see and photograph every five feet.
Cook has plenty of wonderful photographs and logs of his trips at Vanishing Point.
We’re making great progress in information design for coffee lovers. There’s those mugs that help you match colors, and the illustrated guide to coffee drinks to help you brew.
ATL Creatives is all about what creative people are up to in Atlanta. It’s the brainchild of Eric Shoemaker and Rick Hill.
An interview with expert calligrapher Bernard Maisner, who does the usual wedding invitations, window signs, but has also had cameos in major films:
I did writing on-camera for a documentary film about the Oswald/Kennedy assassination by famed German filmmaker Willi Huismann. I had to write like Lee Harvey Oswald live on camera. Writing samples of Oswald were provided to me from the U.S. National Archive and Records Administration. I studied the writing, analyzed and made U&LC alphabet charts from OswaldÄôs writing, traced and memorized every letter, as well as his combinations of letters, and studied other characteristics of his writing so that I could write the way Oswald didÄîimmediately and without thinking.
Mark Larson 