I was on a phone call the other day and I found myself drawing this entire font set for the duration of the call. I decided to produce the font with the help of  Fontographer 5. Now I give it to my loyal readers for free – Thanks for reading. ALSO: Alternate characters included as lowercase.

Download Opentype [OTF] + EPS

P.S. I figured I’d get a little illustration practice in there. It was a nice exercise. Thank you Bill Compton.

His name is Mister Cleft, the Street Pirate. He lives in the concrete jungle of New York City, searching for one notorious pigeon who took two of his fingers (and you all know how lethal NYC pigeons can be). Now he has two peg fingers… though removable for knife fittings, screwdrivers, and other such handy tools… I was playing with this crazy character today and I decided to create some wallpapers.

Download: For iPad |  For iPhone 4 |  For Desktop (Widescreen)

IN ACTION:

Several months ago I discovered a wonderful product, BookBook case for Macbook by Twelve South. While it was not a practical solution for me, I still appreciated the consideration to design, detail and innovation. When the iPad was announced, my first thought was, “Oh! Will Twelve South make a case for iPad?” I heard nothing about a case on release day so I defaulted to Apple’s case. I waited months. No case was released. I gave up my little fantasy and decided to order DODOcase [review coming soon]. The DODOcase served me well for about a week, until finally, this passed Monday, Twelve South released BookBook for iPad.

. . .

The Good

This case looks even more amazing in person than I could have imagined. The vintage leather treatment is impeccable. It really gives the appearance that it’s an old book. And moreso, it feels like a book. Especially when you zip it up closed. The hardcover and weight creates a brilliant illusion. All of the small details – like the inner spine bevels, the zipper pulls and the multi-colored thread on the stitching – makes me feel like this product was carefully though out.

The interior is ultra plush… and ultra protective. Not only is the soft brown texture nice to look at, I can feel confident that it won’t scratch my iPad.

The hardcover also reinforces the strength and durability of the case. I’m convinced I can drop the case + iPad (closed of course) and my device will be safe and sound.

Overall, the material selections were an amazing and it couldn’t look any better.

. . .

The Bad

It seems as though no one compensated for the curved back of the iPad. When you set it inside the case, at first it appears to  be seated properly. Though, when you zip it closed, the flaw becomes much more apparent. It’s like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. The entire back of the case bows and bends creating a dissonance of extreme proportions. And while I appreciate the leather lace to tie back the case and assist in standing, it only adds additional imbalance when tucked away under the iPad. Otherwise the lace floats free and dangles around, creating somewhat of a nuisance.

As a segue onto the next point… When standing or flipped around for lap/tabletop resting, the zipper stretches so much, I’m afraid of it’s going to snap at any moment. I understand a taut piece of material lends itself to looking neat and tidy, but I fear this compromises the integrity of the product. I’m confident at some point this zipper will snap – so much so it makes me not want to use the case at all.

. . .

The Ugly

The leather support corners are horrible and the elastic band does nothing. At first it was a bit tricky to fit my iPad into the case. That is understandable as leather is at first quite tight. That is not what bothers me. The support corners are lined with plastic. I’d imagine this is so the iPad can easily slide in and out of the case – again, seemingly a good idea. But in real world applications when you’re lifting up your iPad and moving it around, flipping the case, opening it, closing it, the corners seem to push the iPad right out of the case. And when this happens there is nothing to stop it. The elastic band on the opposite side only holds down the iPad (to minimize that bending and bowing defect I mentioned earlier) it doesn’t hold in the iPad at all. So when holding horizontally (an orientation of preference among most) slowly, then quickly the iPad slips out of the case. Not a good feature to promote. And the zipper doesn’t even stop the iPad from sliding out. It just folds in and under the iPad.

This really let me down. And I’ve been using the case nonstop for nearly five (5) days. I’ve given myself a chance to become comfortable with using it.

I’m not even sure I want to keep the BookBook case at this point. It pains me because the aesthetic value is so high, and often times this is hard to come by (at least for a picky person like me). And it’s the exact type of case I wanted too.

. . .

So is this ByeBye for BookBook?

I’d love to hear how Twelve South responds to this. I’m sure they will make claims that my specific item is defective. But after all those months of waiting for the release, you’d think they would have spent enough time testing, ironing out every imperfection.

It’s a SadSad day for iPad cases.

I was so taken back by this artist’s emotion and sense of whimsy, I had to share it on the blog. Simple amazing.

“We design in all directions, we move onwards, we think upwards, we look forwards.”

Ben the Illustrator is based in Cornwall UK. He is launching a new shop in the fall, but until then, check out the clearance. Follow him on Twitter: @BenAndFi

I love typography. When I first saw this I got pretty excited about it. Not only because I could make fonts on my iPad, but because the kinds of applications developers are striving for are fantastic. Really? A portable font creator? Wow. Those are the strides I like to see. Kudos.

The app is called iFontMaker: The First & Fastest Font Editor for iPad – from The 2TTF and is currently available on the App Store.

I ran my test using a stylus my friend Matt made for me. (Good to know an engineer) I felt it the perfect application for a stylus.

PROS:

• Speed – Once you draw the glyphs, you can export a TTF, (fully editable) PDF, or PNG (of composed type) in a matter of minutes.

• Sharing – You can share the link to download your font right away.

• Responsive - The drawing is quite smooth and responsive.

• Guides – Multiple grid options and template overlays to get you aligned and even.

• Live Font Testing – You’re able to type out words and phrases and see instantly how it’s looking. You can even adjust the tracking.

• Simple, Clean Design – I like the white-on-black chic style. It’s appropriate here because it creates maximum contrast without being distracting or hard to read (as sometimes white on black can be).

• Blob Brush – Strokes act like the blob bush in Illustrator – This is kind of fun actually, but does have a few drawbacks since it’s the only functionality of the brush.

• Price Tag – At $5.99 (current sale until July 7th – normally $7.99) it’s definitely worth it. Even if it can’t handle heavy lifting, it still makes font creation pretty fun.

CONS:

• There is No “Real” Editing -  After you create your strokes you can’t really manipulate them. There isn’t even a simple eraser tool. It would be great delete some of those unwanted strokes without having to redraw the entire thing.

• No Landscape Mode - Landscape mode feels best for iPad – sits more comfortably on your lap and typing is a breeze. Unfortunately when you change the orientation of your iPad, nothing happens.

• Precision – I wish the pen tool were really a pen tool. Add some bezier options and we’ve got a winner.

• Tools leave much to be desired - Giving a few more brush options would be fun. If this isn’t about making a “perfect” amazing typographic work (a la the next “Gotham” font) then we need to see some more fun here by way of brushes and manipulation. Other options such as editing the angle and tip of the brush would be fantastic. It doesn’t have to be complex, just a few options much like the Brushes app. Perhaps there is some sort of “Warp” brush, additional brush heads, etc. that can push and pull ad ben your glyphs.

• Bugs –  Still a few glitches. This is an annoying one. The strokes go haywire a bit.

• Some of the UX is confusing – At first editing the brush and its sizes may not be totally intuitive or logical. i.e. I should be able to get “brush options” (such as style and size) when clicking the brush icon.

• Exporting – All export options should appear together. Currently “Glyphs” and “Compose” modes have different export options.

Other notes and wishful thinking:

• Glyph pagination – I wish swipe for pagination was added here.

• Importing – Would be really fantastic to be able to import paths / line work into the app. Even if a template or special file needs to be used, this would be a really expansive feature.

• Project Manager with previews – Rather than an informal pop-up, it would be great to get an overview of the fonts in progress by seeing a page of thumbnails of each font. (See quick mockup below)

. . .

While the “Cons” seem a bit overwhelming, this application is pretty solid and a great start. I’m eager to see how it evolves over time. I’d definitely recommend playing around with it.

Oh, and you can download this font I made as a test, Cloud Doodle TTF. PIN: 0870

Once of my nieces is obsessed with Dunnys… and she just turned 2 years old yesterday. Yea, sounds crazy doesn’t it? Once she saw my insane collection a while back (commonly referred to as “The Dunny Museum”) she was completely floored. Her jaw dropped and she screamed “Dunny” over and over. I figured it was only a natural progression to give her a custom Munny for her birthday… even if she is only 2.

We all remember that amazing interface from Minority Report. (Wow, has it been 8 years already?) Since then, we may have seen experiments and tests done that could simulate or partially recreate elements from that brilliant system. And while they were really interesting and hopeful, they were nothing anyone could actually imagine using on a daily basis. Now, John Underkoffler presents us with the beginnings of an actually useable, viable prototype for such an interface. OK, so the next new iMac won’t include this technology, but it will definitely come sooner than we think. Watch below or Watch on TED | Watch on iTunes

From TED.com:
Minority Report science adviser and inventor John Underkoffler demos g-speak — the real-life version of the film’s eye-popping, tai chi-meets-cyberspace computer interface. Is this how tomorrow’s computers will be controlled?

When Kidrobot introduced their new do-it-yourself MUNNYWORLD shapes, I saw Bub and instantly pictured him with a beard. I haven’t had time until now to actually create the custom, but finally I’ve nearly completed this guy.

Got a little inspiration from Samurai Jack and (one of my favorite toy designers) Huck Gee. I still think he needs an accessory of sorts. We’ll see what I can come up with.

Behind The Scenes:

I was taking a break today and decided to doodle a bit. These “Round Things” are the result of that. The only rule was to try and keep it circular. Download them if you like as vector EPS.

I just received my copy of Computer Arts Projects, May Issue No 136 in the mail. I’m featured in the “Designer Challenge.” To read the article and check out the comps, you can download a PDF here. It was a nice little project. Thanks to Nick and Josh.

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