Daily Drop Cap

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

Daily Drop Cap is a new project by typographer and illustrator Jessica Hische, her lettering is always amazing and a daily task like this is sure to yield some interesting designs.

Cheese or Font?

Friday, September 11th, 2009

An awesome new game combining two things close to my heart – cheese and fonts!

cheeseorfont

FIRED!

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Dangerous typographic choices in the workplace… The way stuff is perceived over email is quite interesting, I think a lot of the time tone is misconstrued. Even what sign off to use can be tricky.

Regards – too appropriate?
Warm regards – too predictable? 
Kind regards - too predictable?  
Best – too much of a brush off?
Cheers – too alcoholic/British?
Yours – too forward? 
Fondly – too sexual?
Love and kisses – too cute?
I remain yours truly – too heavy?
Thanks – too repetitive?

I’d like to work out something more personal and original.

Love to hate it.

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

The Wallstreet Journal, recently published an article on Comic Sans and its creator, which I found interesting as it revealed a little bit more about how it came to be.

I think the idea behind Comic Sans is interesting and appropriate, but factors in its execution have caused it to become a painful presence.

To me it feels half way between an edgy comic book font and a children’s style typeface, making for an uncomfortable balance. 

The name Comic Sans indicates it’s appropriate for general use, the ’sans’ makes it much more serious than it ever needed to be. If it was called Comic Book, as originally suggested I don’t think its use would be quite as widespread because the name points to a less conventional and more child-like use, making it seem inappropriate for use in things like business emails or street signs.

Its inclusion in Windows 98 I think was key to its widespread use, as within the standard supplied fonts it was the only softer, handwritten style display typeface. People have misappropriated its use – perhaps they didn’t know what to do with the serif and sans serifs – or just wanted something different and only had one obvious option.

2008 Buzzwords

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

I like end of year wrap ups like these.

My favourites are Fail and Ressionista.

Also great typo illustrations by Jessica Hische.

Logo crafting

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Johnson Banks have started LoGoReDo: a regular blog post where they tweak existing logos to achieve a better design solution with existing elements. I think they are great example of design thinking and process, as they take the problems, have a brief discussion and actually show potential ideas for resolutions focussing on the small details (rather than just coming up with a new concept). 

View their take on T-Mobile and BT.

The rather difficult font game

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Test your typographic prowess with this font identification game. Try and beat my 30/34! Lots of fun, but I think it could have been harder still, basing it not just on system type fonts but more of the modern classics that people are using now.