I’m a here and now kind of guy, and unless there is a big red mark on my planner for an upcoming deadline I’m usually fairly obvious to the date. Having forgotten my own birthday 5 times for example, it took a while for it to click.

April fools!

Curse you idsgn, for your convincing trickery. One of these years I’ll remember the date, maybe…

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Now, I don’t know exactly what Google bases it’s auto-complete suggestions on, but presumably it’s built around popular search terms. If this is the case, the graphic design community may be harbouring a dirty little secret.

When you’re all alone…

Do you use Comic Sans?

P.S. Here are some more favourites from Google:

• assume the chicken is a sphere.
• amish online dating.
• computers are about murdering you in a lake.
• what if grass hoppers had machine guns.
• who can keep his head in a chicken coop the longest.
• why do walruses go to tupperware parties.
• i killed the president of paraguay with a fork. how’ve you been.
• onions are my husband.
• penguins are my favourite sort of frogs.
• do you find it painful when i get funky.

It’s good to know people still find the time to ask how you’ve been after they’ve just killed the president of Paraguay with a fork.

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I’m a bit of a Sci-Fi buff and not surprisingly, after seeing Avatar today I thought the movie was excellent. The special effects are amazing, as is the 3D viewing technology which is becoming more common place in new movies. However…

As you’ve all no doubt seen by now, and to the bewilderment of designers the logotype for Avatar is papyrus. Even stranger is the choice to use it for the movies sub titles, which play a significant role throughout the film. I can’t think of anything worse for a paragraph of copy than papyrus.

For such technically ambitious effects and what will no doubt go on to be an extremely successful film, it seems bizarre to use the most overused font in history.

I understand the selection was to tie in with the ancient/tribal nature of the films characters, but surely there was something, anything else out there that would have done the job.

I mean, come on…

Special effects: 10/10, Papyrus logotype: 1/10, Papyrus subtitles: -100/10.

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Unless you’ve got it tattooed on your forehead, you don’t as much as this girl I wager. I just hope Helvetica looks as good in 30 years when her skin is a bit worse for wear.

Rinklevetica?

Hmm, a Futura tattoo for me perhaps? Perhaps not…

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Nadine Chahine is a type designer and Arabic specialist for international type foundry Linotype GmbH. Nadine recently released her latest latin adaptation, Neue Helvetica Arabic.

The design is intended to be a companion to Neue Helvetica, and while the typeface was met much praise, there were an equal amount of unsure readers and a handful of slamming reviews.

Nadine describes the typeface as “a mono-linear design with very little contrast“, and yet Helvetica is neither of these.

Two key points of the design brief were;

• Design a typeface that would be the Arabic companion to Neue Helvetica.
• The Arabic version would be true to Arabic script aesthetics and be able to function on its own as well.

Admittedly I know nothing about Arabic typography, but when reading on, these objectives seem destined to conflict.

From a western perspective it seems people are expecting the same variation in stroke weights and shapes to be mirrored in Arabic type, however this is apparently not what is expected in the east.

Readers who are not familiar with Arabic are usually looking to see the same curves of Latin reproduced in the Arabic. This doesn’t work.

Every script has its own logic and we can’t used the curves of one to make the other… There are features that are may not be desirable to take into other scripts.

What do you think?

To quote Nadine in her article, “Is it possible to bring Swiss neutrality into the Middle East?” Is this Helvetica? or just another typeface.

Lots of interesting points can be found in Nadines original post here.

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I realize this has been out for a while now but what can I say, going through 2300 fonts takes time. As well as including the classics, there are over 170 new fonts shipping with Adobes latest release.

Despite having been released several months ago there’s surprisingly little information or examples ( that I could find anyway… ) on Adobes site, so I thought I’d share a handful of the included fonts.

All the included fonts are in OpenType formats and obviously work for both PC and Mac, here’s a small taste.

Century Old Style

Kozuka Gothic Pro

Kozuka Mincho Pro

Aachen Std Bold

ITC American Typewriter

There’s plenty more obviously and I still have tonnes to sort through. Once you siphon out the few dozen decorative or symbol fonts you’re not likely to use it looks like a pretty solid collection. I’ll post some more examples here once I get some free time.

What do you think?

Like anything you’ve seen so far? Any other recommendations from Font Folio 11 if you have it?

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Nick over at Think Design Blog was kind enough yesterday to compile a list of great, and better yet free script fonts to view and download.

There are plenty of styles. Thick, thin, clean and grungey so you’re sure to find something you like, here’s a quick sample of some that caught my eye.

Monika, available here.

Jellyka, Saint-Andrews Queen, available here.

Scriptina, available here.

And many more.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, be sure to check out the full Think Design Blog article for the full 20.

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As we all know there are thousand and thousands of fonts out there, of the few hundred of good ones you can probably remember one or two dozen, and beyond that you’ll need some reference. This is the post for you.

Cam Wilde from Squidspot recently posted his latest work, The Periodic Table of Typefaces, as shown above. The table consists of 100 “popular, influential and notorious fonts as collected by Cam from many reputable design blogs.

As well as offering prints, shirts, and this nifty Moleskin cover shown below ( I’ve ordered mine ) Cam is kindly offering the source file for whatever donation you deem appropriate, so that you can print your own or do with it whatever your heart desires.

What do you think?

For a while now I’ve been using a few legal size print outs with a hundred lines of the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog printed in a few dozen fonts and a couple of point sizes, my new Moleskin cover is going to be a stylish and handy little tool.

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If you haven’t already seen this BBC documentary by Stephen Fry you’re missing out, it’s fascinating.

Quoted from the BBC – “The printing press was the world’s first mass-production machine. Its invention in the 1450s changed the world as dramatically as splitting the atom or sending men into space, sparking a cultural revolution that shaped the modern age. It is the machine that made us who we are today.

Stephen’s investigation combines historical detective work and a hands-on challenge. He travels to France and Germany on the trail of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press and early media entrepreneur. Along the way he discovers the lengths Gutenberg went to keep his project secret, explores the role of avaricious investors and unscrupulous competitors, and discovers why printing mattered so much in medieval Europe.”

Whether your a designer or not, setting aside an hour to watch this will be time well spent.

What did you think?

Fascinating, no?

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If you’ve done any amount of graphic design or typography you’ve no doubt noticed that the apparent size of type varies greatly between fonts when used at the same point size. Some appearing almost double the size of their smaller counterparts.

The reason is that the point size refers to the body that the character occupies, and although type of equal point size may sit on the same body, they will not occupy the space in the same way.

I wont go into them all, but various elements of the type effect it’s usable size. One of the biggest factors is the x-height, as pictured in this posts heading.

If you were to look at the above two typefaces, Verdana and Goudy Old Style, without the grid lines, it would appear that the Verdana is a larger point size. They are however both 50pt.

As you can seen from the grid lines, the x-height of Verdana is much higher then that of Goudy making the typeface appear larger. This, among other reasons, is why typefaces of equal point sizes appear so different.

Not that this information will help your typography at all, but a little extra knowledge never hurt anyone.

I hope this was interesting.

What other tidbits of information would you like to know?

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