Customizable Lo-Tech Pixel Poster by Jessica Nebel

Saw this on the Type for You blog.

Jessica Nebel bring us a poster with an alterable structure to display messages - a visually professional and attention grabbing alternative to messy blackboard writings.“Pixel It” consists of two layers of paper. Cuts on the white outer layer allow the user to fold parts out and therefore create a “Pixel-Structure” by showing the coloured layer underneath.

Vanna White & Pat Sajak discuss Sans Serifs

Brett MacFadden Snaps to Grid

If you are a graphic design and/or type design enthusiast, you must check out my friend Brett's latest exhibition of lettering inspired by and drawn in... Quark XPress. (Yes, you read that correctly). While you are there, also see the massive stack of books he designed and art directed for Chronicle books.

New Blog: Retire Trajan (The Typeface)

The Monolithic Rule of the Tyrannical Trajan Font in Entertainment Advertising has to come to an end. Let's retire Trajan!

Faust Haus - New Site

I recommend you do check out these sleek and stylish, funky yet highly controlled typography and other sweet stylings by Leah Faust!

Marian Bantjes with Pentagram for Saks Fifth Avenue

Check out these lovely typographic stylings of Marian Bantjes under direction of Michael Bierut of Pentagram for Saks Fifth Avenue.

OurType Arnhem, The Netherlands

From the person who taught me all the essential fundamentals of typography at Arnhem College of Art & Design, the incredible typeface crafter Fred Smeijers comes OurType Foundry of Arnhem, The Netherlands.

The website design is [expectedly] beautiful, original yet very user friendly. I could not locate a credited designer of the site through Google, but I suspect Fred himself was involved.

Check out his books: Counterpunch and Type Now: a Manifesto.

Alphabet: An Exhibition of Hand-Drawn Lettering and Experimental Typography

Opening at the Cooper Union.
Thursday, October 11, 6-8 p.m. (Opening reception)
The Herb Lubalin Center, Houghton Gallery
7 East 7th Street b/w 3rd and 4th Aves
Free





From the PostTypography website:

Alphabet: An Exhibition of Hand-Drawn Lettering and Experimental Typography



EXHIBITION INFORMATION
October 11 - 27, 2007 / The Cooper Union / New York, NY
Hosted by The Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography
Houghton Gallery, 2nd Floor / School of Art
7 East 7th Street at 3rd Avenue / New York, NY / www.cooper.edu

Opening reception:
Thursday, October 11 / 6:00 - 8:00


ALPHABET TRAVEL SCHEDULE
Alphabet will be traveling through 2008. Upcoming and past shows include:
October-November 2008 / Southern Illinois University / Edwardsville, IL
February 2008 / University of Akron / Akron, OH
December 2007 / Ohio Northern University / Ada, OH
October 2007 / Cooper Union / New York, NY
July 2007 / AIGA Orlando / Orlando, FL
February-March 2007 / Minneapolis College of Art & Design / Minneapolis, MN
January 2007 / Pennsylvania College of Art & Design / Lancaster, PA
November 2006 / Northern Illinois University / DeKalb, IL
March 2006 / Workhorse Gallery / Los Angeles, CA
January-February 2006 / M-80 / Milwaukee, WI
November 2005 / Heaven Gallery / Chicago, IL
August 2005 / Lump Gallery / Raleigh, NC
July 2005 / Maryland Institute College of Art / Baltimore, MD

Alphabet: An Exhibition of Hand-Drawn Lettering and Experimental Typography at Cooper Union in New York City

Check out Alphabet: An Exhibition of Hand-Drawn Lettering and Experimental Typography at Cooper Union in New York City at the Lubalin Center at the Cooper Union in new York.

October 11-27, 2007. Weekdays 11 a.m.- 7 p.m., Saturday, 12 p.m.-5 p.m., closed on Sundays.

Matrix Open Type redesign Released by Emigré

One of the classic fonts of our time, creating by type design genius Zuzanna Licko of Emigré, is now available in a beautifully redesigned open-type skin. From the Emigré press release.


Matrix II
A redesign by Zuzana Licko

Matrix II is a complete reworking of the Matrix type family which was originally designed by Zuzana Licko in 1985. The redesign, which started in January 2007, was initiated by the need to create an OpenType version of Matrix. With the hood open, so to speak, Licko used the opportunity to make subtle changes and to fine tune many of the existing characters which were designed some 20 years ago. The contrast between thick and thin strokes was decreased in some instances, and overshoots were corrected. The width of various characters was adjusted and regularized. The cross stroke on the f was simplified on most weights. The design of the lower case g was revisited and an alternate single story version was designed and added to the OpenType version. Seven new fonts were also added to the family: a Semi Narrow, Semi Wide, Semi Tall, Inline Italic, and 3 weights of Italic - a less flamboyant version of Matrix Script. To clearly set this version apart from the original Matrix, and to avoid conflict with previous versions, its name was amended to Matrix II.

To read the full story behind the design and redesign of Matrix, please visit our website: http://www.emigre.com/EFfeature.php?di=105

View and order all Matrix II fonts here:
http://www.emigre.com/MatrixII

Available in Macintosh, Windows or OpenType formats.
Registered customers may upgrade their Matrix fonts to the corresponding Matrix II or OpenType format for 50% of the Matrix II or OpenType price. To order an upgrade, please complete this form.

The Matrix II OpenType fonts include the following features:
Small Caps, All Small Caps, Proportional Old Style Numbers, Proportional Lining Numbers, Tabular Old Style Numbers, Tabular Lining Numbers, Superior Numbers and Scientific Inferior Numbers, Numerator and Denominator, Fractions and Arbitrary Fractions, Ornaments.

W.A. Dwiggins Research Blog by Kelly Rakowski

Kelly Rakowski started a new blog on her research of Type Designer, Illustrator, Graphic Designer, Puppeteer and Book-Artist William Addison Dwiggins.




What I didn't know, is that Dwiggins also did a lot of work on marionettes. Very beautiful stuff:

All photographs by Kelly Rakowski.

Here is a short piece on WAD, as he called himself, from Wikipedia:

William Addison Dwiggins (June 19, 1880 Martinsville, Ohio - December 25, 1956 Hingham, Massachusetts ) was a U.S. type designer, calligrapher, and book designer. He attained prominence as an illustrator and commercial artist, and he brought to the designing of type and books some of the boldness that he displayed in his advertising work.

His typefaces—Electra and Caledonia are most widely used—were specifically designed for Linotype composition and have the clean spareness of the motor age. Metro is most notable as his most modern sans serif typeface. Metro was developed by Linotype in the late 1920s in response to similar type being sold from European foundries such as Futura, Gill Sans, and Erbar.

His scathing attack on contemporary book designers in An Investigation into the Physical Properties of Books (1919) led to his working with the publisher Alfred A. Knopf. A series of finely conceived and executed trade books followed and did much to increase public interest in book format. Dwiggins was perhaps more responsible than any other designer for the marked improvement in book design in the 1920s and 1930s. He gained recognition as a calligrapher and wrote much on the graphic arts, notably essays collected in MSS by WAD (1949), and his Layout in Advertising (1928; rev. ed. 1949) remains standard.

WAD (as he called himself) is credited with coining the term 'graphic designer' in 1922 to describe his various activities in book design, illustration, typography, lettering and calligraphy (his first typeface designs were released much later). The term did not achieve widespread usage until after the Second World War.

Logo Cities Project & Symposium by Matt Soar

Check out the Logo Cities project by Dr. Matt Soar, including symposium starting tomorrow with a keynote address by Johanna Drucker; plus the Québec premiere of Helvetica.

From the official Website:
About Logo Cities

Logo Cities is an ongoing research/creation project addressing signage, branding and lettering in public space, with a particular focus on the city of Montréal. Logo Cities is directed by Dr. Matt Soar, Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University, and is made possible by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. With considerable assistance from grad students Cecilia Chen, Grant Collins, AnneMarie Ennis, Lisa Gasior, and Michael Lithgow.

René Knip, Master of Type

If you are a typophile like me, you already know all there is to know about the work of type-designer/graphic designer/illustrator/product designer/artist René Knip. The thing is, this stuff never gets old and you need to go look again.

Do so whenever you're in a funk or lack inspiration. Called the "Lone Wolf of Dutch Type Design" by graphic design writer Jan Middendorp, René now operates out of a beautiful farmhouse in the rural dutch province of Friesland.


Hema ceramic tile alphabet - personal initiative, in co-operation with merkx + girod architects, 1997
An alphabet initially created as a personal project, resulting in the print shown at left. architect evelyne merkx encouraged knip to further develop it to be used in the new restaurants of the hema department stores. produced at koninklijke tichelaar, makkum.



Cast aluminium house numbers - merkx + girod architects, 1999
Ten house numbers, executed in cast and beaten aluminium. this series of house numbers was a special design for the 15th anniversary of merkx + girod architects. at left is a picture of the complete, raw cast model of the ten figures, and one figure packaged as a giveaway.


Fire basket - gebr.knip, 2001
laser-cut, 65 cm high fire basket. when a fire is lit, one-word poems light up in a constant alternation of hues. see also www.gebrknip.nl

AIGA Chicago Fresh Talent 2006, Museum Boijmans Installation, VIDE Summer Experiences and ID Magazine's ID40

The Strange Attractors have been busy, here are a few news items from their studio, Strange Attractors Design (Catelijne van Middelkoop & Ryan Pescatore Frisk). They just returned from Chicago, where they were honored to be AIGA's Fresh Talent speakers for 2006. They also just completed a large (49 square meters) Typographic Installation, commissioned by Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. VIDE commissioned them to create a video to promote their Summer Experiences, where they will be teaching a workshop in July. Lastly, if you haven't seen ID Magazine, SA have been included as one of the ID40 for this year.