Beyond Typography

Normal service has been resumed: Updated Type is Art link

Well hello. Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been on holiday. Sunning myself in Cyprus.

I'm back at work now. Here's a quick round up of what's been happening...

Creative

For the next couple of weeks I'm working in the Creative department of the company I work for. Doing a sort of job shadow type thing. As I've been working mainly in editorial for the past 15-or-so years I thought it would be good to see how the commercial side of things operate (even though I've been doing this sort fo thing for a while). In our company there is(was?) a them and us attitude between editorial designers and the Creative designers. Each side thinking they were better. So far, I have not experienced this. As far as I'm concerned, design is design, regardless of discipline. We should all support each other. There is too much pressure and competition from the non-design community for there to be tension within.

Anyway, yesterday was day one and I spent a really useful morning with one of the web designers, who critted my work. I found it really useful as so far I have only had feedback from marketing and editorial people. Thanks Mark.

Sexy things

A few other things have happened. I bought a digital camera. I opted for the Canon Sureshot G9 in the end (see post June 25). I am really please with the performance and results.

I also got my iPhone! FANTASTIC! Friday was an interesting day in the search for a 16Gb version. Got one delivered from the Carphone Warehouse in the end.

Largest Apple customer

One interesting snippet of news last week. Axel Springer, one of Europe's largest newspaper publishers, is moving it's entire workforce over to the Mac platform. 10,000 employees worldwide!

Photography exhibition

I went to a viewing of some photography yesterday. It was one of three that I had been invited to. I thought that this one might be a little different, even if the quality might not be great (my own preconceptions). I was impressed by the quality of the work. Some work being better quality than the endless stream of graduates and new start-ups that do the rounds now, wither by email or in person. The one thing that I found refreshing was the originality of the work, not the endless (tedious) stuff trying to emulate the latest fashion mags. These were good. I have to mention that the work was not at some exclusive venue in London, but at the Treloar College near Alton in Hampshire. The photographs were the final displays for the A-level and City & Guilds photography students. The students are all physically disabled.

Cool

And finally, a bit of fun. Take a look at this. Type is Art is a cool project by Jose Rodriguez where you can create art from parts of letterforms. I originally saw it on the I love typography site.

Love type

I found a fantastic site the other day. It's called I love typography. It has so much information about type. Written by someone who really does love the subject. While you're there, try the rather difficult Font Game. Look at the hall of fame – I'm no.7! Not bad...

Another great blog is by a woman called Mrs Eaves at for the love of type. Inspired by Stefan Sagmeister’s artwork for Lou Reed's album Set The Twilight Reeling, she produced this...

Have a good Friday.

Life in Type

I found this on Crap Detector...

Useful

Really useful typographic unit converter

Friday

Two fonts – Garamond and Ariel – walk into a pub. The landlord sees them and orders "Get out!"

The fonts look bemused and ask why.

He says "we don't want you types around here!"

Have a good weekend.

A walking tour with Tobias Frere-Jones

What a great way to spend time on a Sunday, even with the threat of rain. A group of about 10 led by type-designer Tobias Frere-Jones of some of the typographic wonders in lower Manhatten. An interesting mix of people, from packaging designers through to a marketing director.

It started outside City Hall where Tobias gave us a brief history of the Roman type used on a lot of the public buildings. In particular, the fact that W, Y and K did not exist in Roman times and the stonemasons had to have an educated guess as to how they should be.

The tour took us through Chinatown and little Italy and ended in the east Village. Along the way were examples of the evolution in signage in Manhatten, from the stone carved edificies on public buildings to handpainted signs on a hosiery shop, and gold-leaf lettering to plastic signs via neon tubes.  Tobias said he could have led the tour all day showing us examples. I, for one, would have been happy with that.

When I get to a quicker network I'll upload some pics and vid.

Tomorrow the conference starts properly at 7.30!.