Sander Baumann documents the ubiquity of Arial in real-world practice. Most of his photos come from Amsterdam, the heart of a culture known from its design prowess.
Category: links
International Design Workers Federation
The latest episode of Layer Tennis between James Draplin and Chris Glass was one of the best I’ve seen in awhile, it borders on a conceptual exercise in the evolutionary developement of a brand. I now await the rise of the IDWF, so I may obtain my membership card and ironic t-shirt.
Update: The domain has been registered, but it just links to the match for now.
Improving your web typography
Antonio Carusone offers eight simple steps for improving your typography. It’s fairly standard for the most part, but he provides some good CSS examples for web developers.
Photos from NASA
Pretty much all of the media produced by NASA is public domain. That means you can do almost anything you want with the wealth of images available at NASA Images. In other news, efforts are being made to recover high-resolution images from the Lunar Orbiter program that was tasked with mapping the lunar surface before the Apollo missions. The ongoing recovery program is based out of an abandoned McDonald’s.
Type for the road
Here’s a short NYT slideshow about the development of new signage typography for American roadways. Reminds me of a lecture that I attended concerning Jock Kinneir’s Transport typeface and some of the testing that went into its development. Personally, I prefer Transport to Clearview, but any improvement in legibility for drivers is a good thing.
Visualizing the Grid
The NPR has an interesting data visualization of the US electrical grid, detailing transmission lines, types of power used by state, and proposed infrastructure.
Faceout Books
Appreciating the practice of book cover design. Faceout Books focuses on one book or series each week, delving into the challenges and outcome of the project.
Obama and the Wild Things
Barrack Obama reads Where the Wild Things Are. There are so many awesome things about this video, you can’t help but smile.
Changing publishing for the better
Six Projects That Could Change Publishing for the Better is Michael Tamblyn’s presentation from the BookNet TechForum outlining projects, changes and initiatives that could help change the industry. It’s forward thinking and funny to boot, definitely worth watching if you’re at all interested in the book industry.
Know Your Meme
Know Your Meme, just in case you were confused by the internet. You may also want to read I can has rezearch papar? I did it for the lulz.