Satoru Iwata discusses the Mario brothers with Shigeru Miyamoto. The interview is quite revealing — many of Mario’s trademark characteristics were due to design and programming restraints at the time, including the moustache, the hat and the overalls.
Category: links
Playboy type
Ministry of Type takes a look at the typography and layouts of Playboy, particularly those from the 50s and 60s. The magazine has put about fifty years of archives online, although the interface is a bit kludgey.
World changing science
Trailblazing is an interactive science exhibit from the Royal Society. It showcases sixty articles from the last 350 years, allowing you to place them in their historical context and read the papers in entirety. My productivity will be going out the window this afternoon, enjoy.
Notes from a midlist author
The confessions of a semi-successful author. The article is a few years old, but I can’t imagine the conditions have become much better.
If you don’t want to hear about the noir underside of publishing — if you’re a writer longing for a literary career, or a reader who’s happier not knowing that producing and marketing a book these days involves about as much moral purity as producing and marketing a pair of Nikes — I suggest you stop reading now.
Dead Caulfields
The uncollected works of JD Salinger. Twenty two stories from various publications that have never been available in one place.
Typographic purists
Mistakes in typography grate the purists from the NYT.
“I think sometimes that being overly type-sensitive is like an allergy,†said Michael Bierut, a partner in the Pentagram design group in New York. “My font nerdiness makes me have bad reactions to things that spoil otherwise pleasant moments.â€
I’m not at the anaphylactic stage of typographic allergy yet — more the sniffly, dry and itchy eyes sort of thing.
From the Hellbox
Letters from the Hellbox is an irregular column from Martin McClellan on typographers.
Typographic titles
I was watching My Man Godfrey and was struck by the title sequence and its use of typography. Older films generally have the credits first, this one is no different in that respect, but the integration into the film is quite phenomenal — the camera pans across a cityscape, with the cast, crew and title, displayed as blinking signage. The film is now in the public domain, and available for viewing on Google video or download from the Internet Archive.
On a somewhat related note, I thought the title sequence for Bored to Death was quite well done. Although, it’s more in the vein of typography as illustration.
Update: Added graphics from two title sequences. Also thought I’d take a moment to mention Christian’s Movie Title Stills again, which I linked to earlier.
Barthleme’s syllabus
Donald Barthleme’s list of must-read literature. Can’t say I’ve read much on the list, but it seems like a good starting point on the way to becoming better read. Phil Gyford posted a full-text list of the books, which is probably a bit easy to print out and drag along with you.
Found typography
Lettering is a collection of found typography, signage and ephemera with a particular focus on the London Underground.