Some nice animated type in this Starbucks ad. I also like the concept. Considering that I’ll be at my polling station at 6:00am tomorrow to cast my vote before work, I’ll need a tall cup of java. See you at the polls…
360angles
Unsolicited notes, links and advice from an online development firm in Kansas City.
You are viewing items Tagged "Typography and Writing".
Get a free copy of Advent Pro at Deviant Art. It’s a really nice sans-serif that comes in regular, light, extra light, bold, extra bold, regular oblique (not italic), and regular rounded. Commercial work containing this typeface must include the reference to the author; personal projects don’t necessarily need to have a reference.
Don’t miss this ~5 minute doc on the art of Letterpress.
“It will die. Eventually. Because people will forget how to do it.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“It’s OK, I’m only responsible for my watch.”
The Linotype machine is mesmerizing. The 3rd dimension that Letterpress adds to typography can’t be beat.
A lot of web designers are interested in typography, and rightly so. The two go hand in hand in that you can rarely get away from typography when designing for the web and there are many similarities between the disciplines, anyhow. (Seeing as a web designer and a typographer share the common goal of conveying information in an aesthetically pleasing way without detracting from or coloring it unintentionally.) So, where do you start?
The answer is right here: The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst. It is the typography bible, and while it is not as perfect as some typophiles like to go on and on about, it is certainly the most comprehensive place to start on the long road of learning about, and learning to love, Typography.
“Bang” is a slang term printers use for an exclamation point. “Interrogatio” is Latin for “cross-examination.” The interrobang is the mash-up of the two used to define a gloriously unnecessary glyph that’s a marriage between a standard exclamation point and a question mark.
The interrobang was invented by a marketing man, Martin Speckter, who thought that his advertisements would look better with surprised, rhetorical questions using single punctuation marks. He was wrong. The interrobang is now considered a non-standard English language character that was in vogue for much of the 1960′s.
I love it anyway and I’m not sure why. It may be because it’s fun to say, or that it’s a typographical relic and I’m on a typography kick. Who knows‽
Are any of you guys geeky enough to have a favorite glyph? (<– not rhetorical and surprised = no interrobang.)
Remember that kid in the back of the class who would draw anything and usually get sent to detention? Well now he’s all grown up. . . kind of.
Comic Artist D.J. Coffman is gaining quite a following after offering to draw literally anything for $2. Why would he do such a thing, you ask?
Number one, it’s fun. Number two, it’s practice to make me faster and keep me sharp drawing various things I wouldn’t have thought to draw. Number three, it was originally meant to be a cheap way to give something quick back to donors of the Yirmumah comic. It’s not about making money, as you can tell by the cheap price tag, it’s mostly just for fun. I’ve unexpectedly gotten other bigger paying commission work out of people seeing these little drawings pop up, and some people actually pay me more than 2 bucks and I put a little more time into their drawings… so I guess it’s a happy accident for now. I’d probably do it even cheaper….. I upped the price to 2 dollars due to inflation and the price of gas and… well, 2 dollars sounds funnier.
So, what exactly is the ‘correct’ price for a piece of art anyway? Is it only art if it costs a lot of money? To find out, we commissioned a small work of art – a Voltage Creative logo killing the Comic Sans font. Check it out. Clearly it’s worth every penny – it did just create a conversation piece for us here, after all.
In terms of immediate impact, this has to be one of the best public service ads I’ve ever seen. Click the pic for full size to get the full effect.
Wordle is a free web app that allows you instantly visualize text works.
ordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like
For instance, the U.S. Constitution, or the Numa Numa song.
I recently received an email to vote on the new, improved athletics logo for UMKC, my alma mater. (That’s University of Missouri – Kansas City for anyone wondering.) I was confused at first. How often do logos need to be updated? The year after I graduated they came out with a new logo. I’d say somewhere around 2005. This brings us to somewhere around 3 years ago. And it’s already time for another logo?
It seems that the athletic department has decided that “to create a more comprehensive athletics program, they need to have a more consistent identity, which is something that hasn’t been visible in the past.”
I guess the logo they designed a few years ago wasn’t consistent enough. I’m pretty sure the invisibility of the past was lack of marketing, not the identity. I thought the logo they used from 1987 to 2004 was pretty consistent.
It wasn’t used very well and kind of reminded me of the KangaROOS shoe brand logo, but I thought it was consistent. Re-branding is a common method used to spike interest, so I guess I can handle it. A logo design should be timeless and if anything be able to last more than 3 years. Changing your logo constantly isn’t going to help “consistency”.
After saying all that, I’m still excited to see the options I’ve been given to choose between. I click the link that takes me to the voting page. Uhhhh… really? The two logos shown aren’t what I was hoping for to say the least. Quick critique time!
Option One (on left): I like that they show the whole kangaroo. Even though it says roos, it’s nice to know what it is with a quick glance and with just a head or upper body it’s hard to tell exactly what it is. I understand that the Roo is supposed to have an illustrated feel, but it seems incomplete. The bigger issue is the typography. “Roos” is hard to read. The “R” looks very close to an “A” and the “s” looks like a “5″. The text shouldn’t be angled. When this gets printed on a T-Shirt, it will look like a bad print job. I can hear it now. “Is this supposed to be angled?”
Option Two (on right): I really want to like this one. Overall I wish it were more symmetrical to give it a stronger and more stable look. Especially being a sports logo. The boxing gloves are a nice concept, but I’m not sure if it reads very well. The typography here is better starting with a more traditional and less trendy font choice than option one, but still needs some work. It looks like they tried to have the same arch baseline for “UMKC” and “ROOS”, but were just off from matching it and “ROOS” being italicized doesn’t help it fit either.
Maybe we should look to our new arrivals in the Summit League, the South Dakota State Jackrabbits. They recently redesigned their logo as well. I think I’ll write in a vote for it.
Megaflicks doesn’t care about kerning. But, every junior-high-bound bus that passes the place is full of giggling passengers who do care about kerning, they just don’t know it.