“Inspired by Bob Dylan´s Subterranean Homesick Blues video,” writes designer Leandro Senna, “where he flips cards with the lyrics as the song plays, I decided to recreate those cards with handmade type. I ended up doing all the lyrics, and not just some of the words, as Dylan did.”

“There are 66 cards done in one month during my spare time using only pencil, black tint pens and brushes. The challenge was not to use the computer, no retouching was allowed. Getting a letter wrong meant starting the page over.”
[Via]

No, I hadn’t heard of it either, but the short story is that Adobe is giving away its IP to make type look more beautiful on your screen.

FreeType, an open-source library for font rendering, is used either partially or exclusively by Android, Chrome OS, iOS, GNU/Linux and other free Unix operating system derivatives such as FreeBSD and NetBSD. This makes FreeType the font rendering software of choice for more than a billion devices.

Details & examples are here. I’m just excited that Adobe, which since its founding 30 years ago has been redefining what’s possible around beautiful type, is making this contribution. More info from Google is here.

Ah, back in the day, when men were men & signs had “un-f***-with-ability”! I love Aaron Draplin’s deeply genuine enthusiasm & affection for the sign-making craft:

Aaron will be speaking at Adobe MAX this year: “Tall Tales from A Large Man”. Visit max.adobe.com and use promo code MXSM13 when you register to save $300.
The Adobe Creative Layer blog features a brief interview with Aaron.

Designed by Alex Fowkes, reports CreativePro.com,

The Sony Music Timeline celebrates 125 years of musical history covering almost 150 square meters of wall space in Sony’s Derry Street offices. Using just CNC cut vinyl as the sole medium, 54 columns measuring over 2 meters tall cover feature nearly 1000 of Sony Music’s signed artists from 1887 to the present day.

Why, exactly, Joerg Piringer decided to make a 30-minute movie that “shows all displayable characters in the unicode range 0-65536 (49571 characters), one character per frame,” I can’t really imagine. Just to honor its sheer craziness, however, I share it here:

“The sound is me reciting the alphabet (in German). One letter per frame.” Here’s more info on the project. [Via Carolina DeBartolo]

This is some of the most unique typography (if you can call it that) I’ve heard of in a while: the wheels of the Curiosity Rover feature a custom pattern that spells out “JPL” (for Jet Propulsion Laboratory) in Morse Code in the vehicle’s tire tracks.

[Via]

These days Adobe is releasing more open-source applications (e.g. the new WebKit-based code editor, Brackets). The Adobe type team felt they–and the community at large–needed a better option for on-screen work.

Thus they’ve created Source Sans Pro. As the Verge notes, “[T]his family of fonts is intended primarily to be used in user interfaces, meaning it has to be legible at low resolution yet also readable enough to support long streams of text.” Designer Paul D. Hunt explained some of his process & considerations for the project, adding:

Besides being ready for download to install on personal computers, the Source Sans fonts are also available for use on the web via font hosting services including Typekit, WebInk, and Google Web Fonts. Finally, the Source Sans family will shortly be available for use directly in Google documents and Google presentations.

#progress

From Under Consideration:

Wimpy, a fast food restaurant in South Africa, wanted to let blind people know that they have braille menus, so they prepared hamburgers with buns that had the burger’s description set in braille in sesame seeds.

When’s the last time you saw someone take this much pleasure in a burger?

• Cheese or Font? That is the question.
• Compare your letter-spacing skills to experts’ via Kern Type, the kerning game. (Happily, I didn’t entirely suck at this.) [Via Adam Jerugim]
• If you’re up for a greater challenge, try Shape Type, the letter-shaping game.

I’ve written previously about how the TypeDNA panel lets Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign select fonts by similarity, choose complementary fonts, etc. As a refresher, here’s a quick demo:

Now they’re offering students six months of free access to the service. You must have an EDU email address and register with this special form.

The Onion reports, “New Study Explains Why Comic Sans Font So Hilarious”:

This second one contains lots and lots of profanity, so please don’t give me a hard time if you listen & that’s not your bag! (For reference here’s the original text.)

[Via]

The creators quote researchers from the University of Twente as saying, “The dyslectics made fewer errors, than the normal readers, on the EMT with the font ‘Dyslexie.’ This is an indication that reading with the font ‘Dyslexie’ decreases the amount of reading errors.”
[Via]

• Adobe commissioned Craig Frazier’s Living Letters creature-type, and you can come to the Photoshop store in SF to have one printed onto a shirt.
• Letter Playground from Nate Williams. It’s a site “where you can submit your own letterform designs and see what hundreds of other people have dreamed up. It’s a bit like a democratic Daily Drop Cap!” [Via]
• Robert Murdock put together a typographical history of his & his fiancé’s relationship. Cue my feeling inadequate, right about now.

This app looks like a fun, thoughtfully designed way to learn about typefaces & their creators.

The app “lets users share font specimens to social networks and features over 620,000 typeface samples – equivalent to more than 20 printed FontBooks,” says Dexigner. [Via]

Font developer Andy Clymer at H&FJ has created a tool that modifies type characteristics in real time based on facial expressions:

From their blog,

I’m intrigued by the potential to control local and global qualities of a typeface at the same time: fingers and mouse to design the details, faces and cameras to determine their position in a whole realm of design possibilities. I wonder about the possibilities of a facial feedback loop, in which one’s expression of wonder and delight could instantly undo a moment of evanescent beauty.

[Via]

The always-interesting Evan Roth put together “a study of 180 letters as written by 180 different graffiti writers” in Paris. Check out the interactive viewer, or just see the quick video below:

Check out this interesting collaboration between Target & old-school printing buffs:

[Via]

Tom Johnson used Illustrator, Soundbooth, Cinema 4D, After Effects to create this interesting take on Conan O’Brien’s farewell to The Tonight Show:

Done on behalf of the Web09 conference:

Adobe & Typekit have announced the addition of four new Adobe font families–six face each for Caslon and Warnock Pro, and five each for Jensen and Arno Pro–to the Adobe Web Font collection.  Check out the type team’s blog for more info. [Via]

My first thought: Eh, more of the tired “kinetic typography” thing.
Subsequent thought: I like the subtle wit in the type, illustrations, & lyrics.

Creator Jarrett Heather writes, “This was created using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere and Toon Boom Animate. I worked on this sporadically, so it’s difficult to estimate how much time went into it. Somewhere between 500-1000 hours, but it was a labor of love.”

• There’s plenty to enjoy in this set of 40 Typographic Posters.
• “For all your puzzlement needs”: the WTF Stamp.
• Somehow it kind of had to happen: Lego Letterpress.
• How big would “Helvetica” need to be to stretch from the Earth to the Moon? 282.6 billion points. You’re welcome.

• Hah: Katrin Eismann points out the 100 Best Signs At The Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear.
• From the school that is old:
  • Mark Simonson critiques anachronistic type use in films. [Via]
  • Neat tech artifacts: Pre-digital displays used tiny neon tubes for numbers.
• Shapes from type:
  • Check out these great city maps made of nothing but letters. [Via]
  • TechCrunch made sketches of Steve Jobs, assembled from his recent comments on Android.
• How about using Comic Sans as home security (ghetto design camouflage)?