I will never not be here for this kind of nuttiness:
Category Archives: Typography
New courses: Machine learning for typography & art
These Cooper Union courses sound fun:
Each week we’ll cover a different aspect of machine learning. A short lecture covering theories and practices will be followed by demoes using open source web tools and a web-browser tool called Google Colab. The last 3 weeks of class you’ll be given the chance to create your own project using the skills you’ve learned. Topics will include selecting the right model for your use case, gathering and manipulating datasets, and connecting your models to data sources such as audio, text, or numerical data. We’ll also talk a little ethics, because we can’t teach machine learning without a little ethics.
TouchType
This tool looks rather nifty, though I haven’t yet had a chance to try it via iOS. Here’s a quick demo:
Design: Split-flap signs
I’ve long loved the weird mechanical purring of those flappy-letter signs one sees (or at least used to see) in train stations & similar venues, but I haven’t felt like throwing down the better part of three grand to own a Vestaboard. Now maker Scott Bezek is working on an open-source project for making such signs at home, combining simple materials and code. In case you’d never peeked inside such a mechanism (and really, why would you have?) and are curious, here’s how they work:
And here, for some reason, are six oddly satisfying minutes of a sign spelling out four-letter words:
Typesetting Trains
Having a train-obsessed 11yo son who enjoys exclaiming things like, “Hey, that’s Cooper Black!,” this tour of railroad typography is 💯 up our family’s alley. (Tangential, but as it’s already on my clipboard: we’re keeping a running album of our train-related explorations along Route 66, and Henry’s been adding things like an atomic train tour to his YouTube channel.)
From the typesetting video description:
Ever since the first train services, a wide variety of guides have helped passengers understand the railways; supplementing the text with timetables, maps, views, and diagrams. Typographically speaking, the linear nature of railways and the modular nature of trains meant that successful diagrams could be designed economically by using typographic sorts. Various typographic trains and railways from the 1830s to present-day will be evaluated in terms of data visualization, decoration, and the economics of reproduction. Bringing things up to date, techniques for typesetting emoji and CSS trains are explored, and a railway-inspired layout model will be proposed for wider application in the typography of data visualization and ornamentation.
[Via Terri Stone]
A fun little animation for Adobe Fonts
<Old Man Nack voice> In my day, it cost $2,500 to buy the Adobe Font Folio—but Kids These Days™ (and the rest of us) get fonts on demand, right through the air. I enjoyed the type & illustrations in this little promo piece:
Font Me, Amadeus
“The world’s first typeface you can hear and play” sounds (heh) interesting. Per DesignTaxi,
Visualizing the brilliance of Amadeus Mozart, branding agency Happy People Project has created a typeface to front communications for Peter Shaffer’s play, Amadeus, in Turkey. […]
14 numbers and letters were created in line with notes and octaves on the staff, so you could listen to them. In total, though, a massive font family of 574 characters was designed for the project.
Check it out:
Sic Transit Linotype
While camping at the funky Sierra Circles sculpture garden/pottery studio/winery, this past weekend, we came across an old Linotype machine hanging out in a field—one of 40+ presses that once existed there, before most were sold to China for scrap. Here’s a tiny gallery I captured:
This reminded my wife to share with me a cool two-minute portrait of America’s last newspaper still printed on the old gear:
New typographical brushes from Adobe turn paint into editable characters
I’ve long, long been a fan of using brush strokes on paths to create interesting glyphs & lettering. I used to contort all kinds of vectors into Illustrator brushes, and as it happens, 11 years ago today I was sharing an interesting tutorial on creating smokey text:
Now Adobe engineers are looking to raise the game—a lot.
Combining users drawn stroke inputs, the choice of brush, and the typographic properties of the text object, Project Typographic Brushes brings paint style brushes and new-type families to life in seconds.
Check out some solid witchcraft in action:
Super fun animated type from Ben Huynh
Check out Art Text 4
Looks like all kinds of good fun (and a steal at twenty bucks)—all the sort of thing I’d hoped we could enable via Photoshop’s 3D features:
Funny, just a couple of days ago I was reminded of the heartbreaking work of staggering genius I whipped up in Art Text in the wee hours of a morning three years ago:
Typography: The super-fraught history of Blackletter/Fraktur
Man, who knew just how much cultural identity could be wrapped up in a style of printing?
This excellent 99% Invisible episode covers the origins of blackletter printing (faster & more reliable for medieval scribes), the culture wars (from Luther to Napoleon) in which it battled Roman faces, its association with (and revilement by!) Nazis, and more.
Bonus: stick around for a discussion of revanchist, Trumpian mandates around government architecture, featuring that delightful term of art, CHUD. *chef’s kiss*
Who wore it better? Google Doodlers vs. the Micronaxx 🥨
I see that for today’s Doodle, Google commissioned a baker…
…to help produce this fun, pretzel-y creation:
It reminds me fondly of when I first joined the company & my son Finn ate his snack into the shape of the logotype. 🥰🥨
[YouTube]
Behind the scenes: Stranger Things titles
I’m always a sucker for these insights, and for the work of Imaginary Forces in particular:
[YouTube]
A rather gloriously animated alphabet
Happy Sunday. 🔤
[Via]
BWHAM!! For the love of comics
My old friend Mike Essl curates a fantastic Instagram feed mashing up classic comics typography, and I dare you not to be charmed by his infectious love of the art form:
Sononym: Finding sound by similarity
This audio browser app has a clever idea, though I wonder if it’d benefit from the kind of rendering that a Google project uses to let researchers visualize thousands of bird sounds via AI:
The primary innovation in Sononym is something called “similarity search”, which enable users to find similar-sounding samples in their sample collection based on any source sound. Essentially, a bit like how Google’s reverse image search works, but with audio.
The initial release focuses strictly on the core functionality of the software. That is, to offer similarity search that work with large collections of samples. Technically, our approach is a combination of feature extraction, machine learning and modern web technologies.
Not entirely dissimilar: Font Map helps you see relationships across more than 750 web fonts.
[YouTube]
Google’s new Sketch plug-in helps you pair harmonious colors & fonts
Old Man Nack would’ve killed for this back in his designer days:
As Design Taxi writes,
“Material Theming” effectively fixes a core gripe of the original “Material Design”: that virtually every Android app looks the “same,” or made by Google, which isn’t ideal for brands.
The tool is currently available on Sketch, and you can use it by downloading the “Material” plugin on the app. Google aims to expand the system regularly, and will roll out new options such as animations, depth controls, and textures, next.
[YouTube]
SNL savages Papyrus font
Oh, I see you nervously shifting a little, photographers. 🙂 This take-down is as hilarious as you’ve heard:
Bonus: CBS news caught up with the font’s creator to get his reaction:
“I designed the font when I was 23 years old. I was right out of college. I was kind of just struggling with some different life issues, I was studying the Bible, looking for God and this font came to mind, this idea of, thinking about the biblical times and Egypt and the Middle East. I just started scribbling this alphabet while I was at work and it kind of looked pretty cool,” Costello said.
He added, “I had no idea it would be on every computer in the world and used for probably every conceivable design idea. This is a big surprise to me as well.”
[YouTube]
Photoshop sneak: Support for “variable fonts”
First they add an actual Glyphs panel, now this? Dogs & cats living together, mass hysteria!
In this one-minute video, Adobe Creative Cloud introduces you to ‘Variable Fonts’, an open-type font format that allows for easy weight, width and slant customization—just drag the sliders until you get desired results.
Typography: Words as what they are
Typography: Art Text 3 can create cool, non-cheesy 3D type
It makes me sad that after 10 (!!) years of having 3D in Photoshop, I can’t think of a single time I’ve created good-looking text in it, much less anything else 3D of value. Given that PS includes a whole 3D engine, I hope that someday it’ll include easy ways to make attractive text.
In the meantime, amidst sometimes literally cheesy results, Art Text 3 ($29.99) produces some rather impressive pieces. Maybe Adobe could just license & bundle it as a plug-in. Hmm… (No, I don’t know anything you don’t know.)
[Vimeo]
Create color & vector fonts in Photoshop & Illustrator CC
Typography: “Is That A Fish In Your Ear?”
Here’s some fun animation from Matt Young conveying interesting info on cross-language differences.
I’ll give it a thumbs-up with my northwest hand…
Typography: The amazing title-design career of Dan Perri
Titles: A riot of “Stranger Things” goodness
Eric Demeusy & Imaginary Forces have created some terrific titles for the new retro hit Stranger Things:
Want some insight into the inspiration & process? Check this:
How cool this must be for 89-year-old Ed Benguiat, creator of the iconic typeface that bears his name. “We’re back in the driver’s seat together again!” he says in this short Fast Company interview. See also “The Typography of ‘Stranger Things.'”
Oh, and would you like to make your own version? Check out Make It Stranger, with which I busted out this:
[YouTube]
Demo: New typographic features in Photoshop CC
Imagine WhatTheFont not only identifying fonts in images but then installing them directly into Photoshop. That’d be pretty badass—and is what’s now working in Photoshop. Here’s a demo from Julieanne Kost.
[F]ind similar Typekit fonts, apply alternate on-screen with one click, and font matching to help identify similar typefaces found in images.
[YouTube]
Meet the new Google Fonts
It’s “a design geek’s paradise,” the Verge writes. Check it out:
The new Google Fonts is now in line with the company’s Material Design guidelines. It has both a new logo and a far easier way to test out new fonts, compare them with others, and change preferences on the fly while viewing sample text in a four-font grid. You can filter by categories like Serif and Handwriting, sort through trending and popular fonts, filter by language, and toggle between different degrees of thickness and slant. Each of the more than 800 open source fonts available now also contains bio information on its designer, as well as statistics on its usage and a list of popular fonts to pair it with. Google Fonts will let you either download the font or give you the code to directly embed it into your site.
The view counter to date might make even McDonald’s insecure:
[YouTube]
Wordplay: Scrabble’s “Anagram Christmas”
Photoshop adds live font previews, a Glyphs panel, and more
Sure beats the bejesus out of clicking through the list & hitting Undo a bunch of times. Check out Julieanne’s concise tour:
[YouTube]
Adobe previews new font-making technology, “Faces”
Wow—this app, which lets you interactively vary all manner of type characteristics, looks rather delightful to explore. I wonder A) how many people would take the time to use it, and B) whether the uniformity of its output makes type purists want to throw up. In any event I’m eager to try it out.
[YouTube]
Typographical inspiration o’ the day
Preach it, Ryan Hamrick.
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” — Steve Jobs
Remembering WWII through type, via Google Russia
Amazingly intricate typesetting in Illustrator:
Willem Rabe’s typographic illustration serves as the interface to the biggest online archive of Russian frontline letters from WWII in the project Living Memory developed by agency Friends Moscow for Google Russia.
A time-lapse look at the making-of:
Fontstand provides a new take on type licensing
Renting fonts? Interesting idea.
We made a Mac app that let you try fonts in your favourite application for free. If you like the fonts, rent them for just a fraction of their regular price. And if you continue to use them, get them for good after a year.
[Vimeo]
Metamorphabet comes to Mac/Win
Earlier this year I wrote about how much my wife & kids were enjoying the beautifully crafted Metamorphabet app. Now you can take it for a spin via your (Flash-enabled) browser and download a copy for Mac & Windows.
[Vimeo]
Crazy hand-lettering skills
Seb Lester is just way better at this than I, and I’m guessing you, will ever be:
Typography: Sending a message to space
Heh—check out this fun project from Hyundai:
Stephanie from Houston misses her astronaut father working at the International Space Station. Watch how her special message, written by 11 Hyundai Genesis, was delivered to her father in space. This message was officially acknowledged as “The largest tire track image” by the Guinness World Records.
Fontli, “a social network for typoholics”
Hmm—could be interesting:
[YouTube]
“A-holes: A type book”
What a gloriously weird Kickstarter project from design professor Curtis Canham:
[Via]
Presenting the best typefaces from Google Web Fonts
Check out this beautiful showcase created by Chad Mazzola:
There are over 600 typefaces in the Google web fonts directory. Many of them are awful. But there are also high-quality typefaces that deserve a closer look. Below are examples of these typefaces in action. Click the examples to get the typeface from the Google web fonts directory.
[Via Jordi Verdu]
Art of the Title: “Machete”
“[A] colorful parade of sneering villains, vixens, and an arsenal of menacing guns and knives”; oh hell yeah.
Check out Kurt Volk’s killer (sorry) work below, then dive deeper in an interview on Art of the Title.
[Vimeo]
Wordswag creates nice text layouts on iOS
Seems quite well done. The question, of course, is whether anyone cares/needs this. I’ve seen Notegraphy, Pictual, and other well executed mobile typography apps come & apparently go without causing much of a stir.
[Vimeo]
Google Fonts meet Aesop’s Fables
This site features lovely details (e.g. your cursor becoming a stylized fox head, vainly chasing “sour” grapes) while presenting good font pairings:
There are over 640 Google web fonts available for free. Problem is, pairing typefaces isn’t easy. And, many of the fonts in Google’s library don’t work well when applied to typical webpage (desktop) layouts. Part of the 25×52 initiative, this collaborative, ongoing project helps provide typographic inspiration for using Google’s web fonts for web applications.
Typography: A literary map of London
Lovely work, “created by graphic artist Dex in collaboration with interior designer Anna Burles.”
More than 250 novels were mined in order to make the Literary London Map, taken from the Literary London Art Collection.
Here’s a larger version, and you can order prints of the map here and here. [Via Margot Nack]
Typography: “Is That A Fish In Your Ear?”
Fun animation from Matt Young conveys interesting info on cross-language differences.
I’ll give it a thumbs-up with my northwest hand…
How to set default type styles in Photoshop
People used to ask about this all the time. Previously little hacks existed, but as of the Photoshop CC release, you can set a default type style for real. Julieanne Kost explains how (jump to just before the 6-minute mark):
Check out Julieanne’s blog for lots of details on exactly how type styles work.
Lovely letters in motion
Spend two delightful minutes with Thibault de Fournas’s grad-school ode to typography. Make sure to stay at least until the middle, my fellow ADD sufferers, or you’ll miss the neat nods to tilters from Saul Bass to Kuntzel and Deygas.
Adobe & Google team up on giant open-source font
Cool news. TechCrunch writes,
Adobe and Google today announced the launch of a new open-source font for Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) languages that covers 65,535 glyphs, making it one — if not the — largest font to cover these languages. The font, which was optimized for both print and screen, is now available for free through Google Fonts and through Adobe’s Typekit, where it is included in the free tier.
My friend Caleb Belohlavek of Adobe writes,
The entire family rounds out at just under half a million total glyphs. Never before has a typeface family of this magnitude, development scope, and value been offered via open source — which makes it a no-cost solution for designers, developers, and everyday users who need a font supporting a broad set of languages…
This is a rather large undertaking for any type foundry, and we couldn’t have done it without Google as a key partner.
Way to go, guys!
Fonts from the homeless, to benefit the homeless
Hmm, intriguing. Khoi Vinh writes,
Homeless Fonts works with homeless people from the streets of Barcelona to translate the handwriting they use on their signs into typefaces. The hope is that advertising agencies and corporations will use license the resulting works, with the proceeds going back into programs to help the homeless. The results are often distinctive and quite elegant.
15-second demo: Use hundreds of Typekit fonts in Illustrator CC
Good stuff to know: