Happy April Fool's Day!
Now for something silly and adorable, and in the vein of my previous post about typography...
HELVETICAT!
http://www.swiss-miss.com/2013/04/helveticat.html
It's possibly the cutest typeface I've ever encountered. (I mean, cats!) It doesn't appear to be available for download, unfortunately. (I would be willing to pay for that. I would! My friends would get annoyed with me pretty quickly, but it would be worth it for the sheer joy of sending entire e-mails full of cat cartoons.)
Showing posts with label typography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label typography. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Recovering the Doves Type
If you're a bibliophile like I am, you might have noticed that the endpapers of hardcover editions usually include a note about the typefaces used in the book. (For a more general layman's overview of the history of typography, I recommend the book Just My Type by Simon Garfield.) While the origin stories of typefaces might seem a relatively dry topic, they sometimes make for fascinating tales of adventure and intrigue. To wit, that of the Doves Type, one of the most influential typefaces of the past couple of centuries:
http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2015/february/recovering-the-doves-type
The improbable saga of their recovery seems like something straight out of a Sherlock Holmes novel! (If compelled to choose one, I'd compare it to The Sign of the Four.) But it's the ending that strikes me; after such a journey, the "treasure hunter" and type designer Robert Green notes that he'll never sell the portion of the typeface that he kept for himself, saying, "It’s too precious. I feel very attached to it now I’ve retraced Cobden-Sanderson’s steps and stood on that very same spot of the bridge." I can sympathize with a sentimental attachment to a piece of history that becomes an obsession! It's fundamentally human to assign value to artifacts of culture, even those that seem a small and incidental portion of a more significant work.
http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2015/february/recovering-the-doves-type
The improbable saga of their recovery seems like something straight out of a Sherlock Holmes novel! (If compelled to choose one, I'd compare it to The Sign of the Four.) But it's the ending that strikes me; after such a journey, the "treasure hunter" and type designer Robert Green notes that he'll never sell the portion of the typeface that he kept for himself, saying, "It’s too precious. I feel very attached to it now I’ve retraced Cobden-Sanderson’s steps and stood on that very same spot of the bridge." I can sympathize with a sentimental attachment to a piece of history that becomes an obsession! It's fundamentally human to assign value to artifacts of culture, even those that seem a small and incidental portion of a more significant work.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Book Critiqua @ The Stanford Daily
I have a column this volume (read that aloud) in Intermission (arts section of The Stanford Daily). It's called "Book Critiqua" -- for those of you who aren't typography geeks, it's a play on the font "Book Antiqua." Anyhow, my inaugural column came out today, featuring Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket). I attended his talk in San Jose, but the even cooler part was, I got to interview him! So here's the article, with a bunch of lovely soundbites:
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/10/28/a-not-so-unfortunate-visit-from-lemony-snicket
He's wonderful in person, and a great conversationalist. And not actually really creepy or anything like that, in case you were wondering.
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/10/28/a-not-so-unfortunate-visit-from-lemony-snicket
He's wonderful in person, and a great conversationalist. And not actually really creepy or anything like that, in case you were wondering.
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