graphic design, art, typography and architecture

Ground breaking, irreverent, boundary-ignorant, esoteric, new wave, alien, an historical milestone,... all terms used to describe the Graphic Design Magazine Emigre. First published in 1984, it was one of the first publications to use the new(!) Macintosh computer. At the time of its publication, many Graphic Designers and commentators were quite scathing in their attacks. The Design writer and critic Steven Heller was one of those critics, confidently predicting--In his 1993 Cult of the Ugly--that Emigre would be nothing more than a "blip in the continuum." Emigre continued to be published for another 12 years. I had pretty much forgotten about it ... [more]

Regular readers will know that I'm quite a big fan of typography. I'm often tempted to post more about typography on this blog, even posting images of typography that I photograph regularly. But then I had a brain wave (well, not a brain wave, really--just an obvious idea): post all the typography-geek stuff on a blog devoted to the topic. So off I rushed and bought myself ilovetypography.com. I've been working on a WordPress theme for some time. I've always like the Grid Focus theme which I've modified for this very blog, and I had started developing my own to replace ... [more]

I've always liked the Plantagenet typeface, so I was pleased to read that: Plantagenet Novus is a completely revised OpenType edition of Ross Mills’ 1996 Plantagenet typeface. The original face is being redesigned and expanded with an extensive typographic repertoire and multilingual character sets to enable the refined setting of scholarly materials in a wide range of languages. If you'd like a ... [more]

Creative Fix will be a regular round-up feature. I'll be listing and commenting on my favourite blog posts, stumbles and bookmarks. Here's my Creative Fix for June 2007: Website that caught my eye: This is a beautifully designed Flash web site; this kind of thing has been done a lot before, but this one is particularly worthy of mention: Architecture: LandMark Houses, an Architectural Housing Project set in the Cotswolds (UK). A complete showpiece village of landmark new homes by some of the best architects in Britain, and the world, is about to be built in the Cotswolds.--The Sunday Times Typography: 15 Years of Type for ... [more]

I've always been a fan of the initial sketches that typographers make when developing new fonts. Even the most ordinary fonts can look that little bit more special when rendered or sketched in pencil. Fontself is an interesting new project--a Bitmap Font and Text Engine--that renders text as images. Now, I can already hear you say that text rendered as an image makes it less accessible, but then if we for a moment think in terms of type as art or for use within Graphic Design, then this project has some potential. It's also an interesting coding challenge. [more]

If you're a graphic designer and budding film-maker or either, then you won't want to miss out on this: For the 4th annual Typophile Film Festival to take place at TypeCon, this year in Seattle during August 1-5, 2007. The film festival is wide open to anything relevant to typography, design history, and/or type design. It can be educational, experimental, inspiring or humorous. I'm thinking of entering something myself - any ideas, anyone? For further information see the Typophile Web Site. And while you're over at Typophile, don't forget to take a look at the Typophile Wiki. [more]

The winners of the prestigious D&AD Global Design Awards have been announced. Here are a couple of the winners. Nike+ by R/GA in the (oddly named) New Users of Websites Category (Black Pencil) Fukutaka House by Flame Inc. in the Typography Category (Yellow Pencil) Images Courtesy of D&AD For the full list of winners and nominations, visit the D&AD web site. For information on who won what and why, visit the Creative Review Blog. [more]

I've just ordered my copy of Made With FontFont: Type for Independent Minds, and was intending to write about it upon delivery. However, the excitement is just too much. For those of you who have never heard of FontFont, it's a collection of digital fonts that's been going strong for 15 years now. Made With FontFont, the book is a celebration of the FontFont library. When I get hold of my copy (where's the postman!?), I'll review it here. You can get your own copy of Made With Fontfont: Type for Independent Minds at Amazon, or the book-seller of your choice. One ... [more]

If you know something about typography, you may well have heard of the Dutch typographer or typotekt Piet Zwart. I'll leave it there and simply suggest that you visit this Piet Zwart Flickr set, put together by Vernon at Reading University. [more]

Here's a great typography video - very nicely produced, and a brief introduction for those new to the art of typography. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o1U4o1bc2k[/youtube] If you like this, you may like these: Helvetica: Homage to a Typeface A Film About Typography [more]