I feel like inspiring political moments these days are just spank-material for aspiring typesetters.
Tag: typography
Shady Characters
“This is Keith Houston’s blog about the unusual stories behind some well-known — and some rather more outlandish — marks of punctuation.”
Also via DesignNotes, a new Flickr group for Tables of Contents.
I like this bit from an interview with Ellen Lupton, talking about common design pitfalls: “My students avoid printing out their work, to save time and money, but then they are disappointed that it doesnÄôt look good. I explain to them that everything looks good on the screen, because of the glowing light and the way we are constantly adjusting the scale of the image to suit ourselves. The same layout may die on the printed page.”
Helvetica, the film
Just got back from the local Helvetica screening (presented by AIGA-Atlanta, sponsored by the Art Institute of Atlanta). It was good, but not great. Pretty cool for a relative noob like myself to see Helvetica’s role in design over the past half-century. But I wish there was a little more nitty-gritty talk about how it came about, and less personal testimony and philosophizing about its ubiquity. One nice bonus was the post-film Q&A with director Gary Hustwit and type designer Matthew Carter. I didn’t take a whole lot of notes, so you’ll have to trust me on its overall worthwhility. But I do remember the three books that Carter most highly recommended: Letters of Credit by Walter Tracy, Modern Typography by Robin Kinross, and Robert Bringhurst’s Elements of Typographic Style.
I love these resume tips posted over at LifeClever. All those subtle, detailed changes add up so nicely you can taste it. (via jb)
–I’ve always liked the Georgia font, especially those dropped numerals (1234567890). Lately it has become the “in” font for websites. One student finds that Georgia helps him get better grades.
–Steve Pavlina lists “10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job“. I’ve enjoyed his website quite a bit, minus the more out-there, new-agey essays (for example).
–I just love this political cartoon with Al Gore. The set-up (so perfectly in character), the wit, the cynicism… Gets me every time. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to read his book or see the movie yet. Though I’ve heard that his lecture circuit presentation is a barnburner.
–Composer Philip Glass and IBM teamed up with IBM to create the Glass Engine. I absolutely love the interface used to explore the range of music, allowing you navigate by title, year, style, emotional content, and more. I’d really like to see stand-alone software with the same functionality. I’d add in the ability to customize and create your own categories, and of course personalize the metadata for each of those. My other idea for this would be to run the software through a wall-sized touchscreen…
Mark Larson 