Jason Santa Maria

Our Favorite Typefaces of 2011 at Typographica

2012-01-26T01:13:23+00:00

One of the best annual wrap-ups returns after a hiatus in 2009-10, Our Favorite Typefaces, from Typographica. Welcome back!

The idea is simple: I invite a group of writers, educators, type makers and type users to look back at 2011 and pick the release that excited them most.
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This is not a juried contest. The result isn’t necessarily the “best fonts of the year”, or even those most used or ballyhooed. But these 50 selections do capture a pretty accurate snapshot of where type design is now, and where it’s headed.

And the results are spot on. 50 reviews is a lot to digest, and I’m still picking my way through them, but there is a lot to love here. Not only is this a great wrap up of the year, but contributes to a valuable collection of commentary on the state of type.

Some favorite reviews so far are Indra Kupferschmid on Cyrus Highsmith’s Salvo, Aegir Hallmundur on Travis Kochel’s amazing Chartwell, Tim Brown on José Scaglione and Veronika Burian’s Abril, and Caren Litherland on Ludwig Übele’s FF Tundra. It’s great to have a chance to give some typefaces a second look, or discover some that you missed over the course of the year.

I’m also honored to contribute a review to the mix. I chose Nicole Dotin’s beautiful new text face, Elena. It reads like a dream.

A List Apart: Issue 342

2012-01-19T19:32:32+00:00

The latest issue of A List Apart is one of my favorites in recent memory, and has three articles you can’t miss.

In “An Important Time for Design”, Cameron Koczon challenges designers to be all that they can be:

The web is going to increasingly shape our world and consequently our daily lives. We can either sit on the sidelines and submissively assist those who are doing the shaping or we can take a more active role in creating the future we want. This year, thanks to a spike in demand, designers have a chance to actively nudge the world in any direction they like. It’s a huge opportunity with a tiny window. Let’s not let it pass by.

Next, Mark Otto walks us through “Building Twitter Bootstrap”, a fantastically useful bit of web design documentation:

Ultimately this boiled down to one core concept: pairing designers with developers. Constant interaction with developers is what sparked Bootstrap and continues to drive its development over a year later. From whiteboarding ideas to coding rough prototypes, collaborating across disciplines is what made Bootstrap successful for internal use at Twitter. This process informed the development of nearly every feature in Bootstrap and has worked remarkably well over time.

And Scott Kellum closes us out with “A Pixel Identity Crisis” where we learn how our little pixel is growing up and getting all awkward:

When using a phone that you held close, a reference pixel will be smaller on the screen than a projection you view from a distance. If the viewer holds their phone up so it is side-by-side with the projection, the pixel sizes should look identical no matter the resolution or pixel density the devices have. When implemented properly, this new standard will provide unprecedented stability across all designs on all platforms no matter the pixel density or viewing distance.

10 New Year’s resolutions for designers

2012-01-04T16:10:04+00:00

I generally avoid lists and New Year’s resolutions, but Mike Monteiro issues a rallying cry so poignant we all need to listen:

I spent the first 10 years of my career saying things like, “If I could just do this work the way I know it should be done…” and convincing myself that someone else was keeping me from making better choices. I’ll often be reviewing work with another designer and they’ll say, “Well, if I were doing this…” I stare back at them in astonishment until they realise what they’ve said. What is this strange gene that makes designers handicap themselves?

Mike sums things up as only he can and it’s a damn fine way to start off a fresh new year. Do yourself a favor and read this one. It’s a wake up call we could all use.

This year? This year’s gonna be a goddamned golden age. Last year we trained. This year we fight.

Tattly in Motion

2011-12-14T17:25:46+00:00

The fine folks at Made by Hand made a cheery promo video for those lovely designy temporary tattoo people at Tattly. I love it when smart people get together and make great things. And you can’t help but smile while watching this.

I make a cameo appearance about seven seconds into the video. And my Tattly design called Aperture is still available.

Shelve Your Opinions

2011-12-06T16:37:38+00:00

Does our definition of what a book is need to change? Barbara deWilde has been seeking to answer just that as part of her project “What the Book” in my SVA IxD class that also doubles as an installation at the AIGA 50 Books/50 Covers exhibition going up later this week at the AIGA headquarters in NYC. This on the heels of the near cancellation of the competition last year which drew the ire of many designers.

Part of the project is a short survey online that asks you to agree or disagree with such statements as “I would never give an ebook as a gift” and “Decorating with books is perverse”. Those same questions are asked at the exhibit too as an installation that allows viewers to physically shelve books as votes (as seen in the photo above). Very cool.

At the end of the survey, you’re also asked to give your definition of a book. And:

Each day, for the duration of the exhibition, a new definition of the book will be written on the gallery wall at the AIGA National Design Center in New York.

Spend a couple of minutes with the survey, and if you’re in NY between now and the end of February, swing by the exhibit at AIGA.

Little Printer from BERG

2011-11-29T17:10:16+00:00

Wow, Little Printer from BERG is such a stellar little example of making something simple and fun.

Little Printer lives in your front room and scours the Web on your behalf, assembling the content you care about into designed deliveries a couple of times a day.

You configure Little Printer from your phone, and there’s some great content to choose from — it’s what Little Printer delivers that makes it really special. We have an incredible group of launch partners, and in the run-up to shipping we’re working with them all on custom publications.

It makes mini personal newspapers! Count me in. Just watch the video and tell me you couldn’t see using one of these things.

Kafkaesque

2011-11-28T20:22:35+00:00

These ~~upcoming~~ (Whoops! They’re already out!) Kafka covers by Peter Mendelsund are really lovely. These beautiful stark shapes and colors make them unexpected, but also totally on the mark. Also, they make use of FF Mister K, a typeface based on Kafka’s handwriting. That’s one of the few appropriate uses for a handwriting font, and it really works here.

via Jacket Mechanical

The Knife Maker

2011-11-04T15:44:33+00:00

The second film in the Made by Hand series, The Knife Maker, focuses on Joel Bukiewicz of Cut Brooklyn. Joel painstakingly makes beautiful knives by hand while breaking down the true meaning of craftsmanship: the people. Just two films in and this is one of the most inspirational series I’ve seen in a long time. Wonderfully shot and edited too. Next up in the series, The Beekeeper.

Chevrolet Speedometer Design

2011-11-04T15:37:32+00:00

Another great gallery from Christian Annyas:

Speedometers are those kind of items you look at thousands of times during your live, without ever really noticing. You notice the speed, not the meter. And if you do notice the meter chances are you don’t realize someone actually designed it. The company probably even did some research beforehand. Research regarding the readability of typefaces, the right size of the numbers and the space between them.

I can still remember the speedometer in my grandfather’s old Chevy. Maybe it’s something I hang on to to remember a bit more of him, or maybe it’s just because it was also the car I learned to drive in.

via Christian Annyas

Tegels

2011-11-01T16:08:41+00:00

Tiles is an animation made of a large photographic collection of street tiles. By viewing this collection of photographs as a sequence, different movements and processes become visible within the frame of the tiles. Both music and animation are trying to find a balance between a thought-out arrangement and an arrangement of ‘chance’ deriving directly from the tiles.

Mesmerizing.

Chocolate is for Girls

2011-10-28T15:03:49+00:00

by Jessica Hische

My love affair with candy has been lifelong, and while each year I seem to have a new favorite, there’s one variable that unites them all—they are not chocolate. I’m almost cartoonish in my ladydom in so many ways, but a lover of chocolate I am not. That’s not to say that I don’t occasionally crave a Mast Brothers’ masterpiece, but if I had to choose a desert island treat, it would likely be fruity, tart, or even flowery. Essentially any candy that you can clearly envision rotting your teeth to the core, that is what I want. As a kid, I loved Squeeze-Pop (“the liquid lollipop”), basting my tongue in sour-apple lava whenever I had the chance. The public pool was an epicenter of sugary awesomeness. In between games of Marco Polo, I’d shock my system with sour watermelons, Swedish Fish, Spree, and—my favorite by far—Fun Dip.

If there was a chewy component to this treat, I think I could solidly declare it The Best Culinary Invention of All Time. Fun Dip, for those not familiar, combined what was essentially pixie-stick sugar dust, with a white stick of sugar that you used as a device to consume the pixie-dust. Eating sugar with a tool made of sugar. How Wonka-esque! The best thing about Fun Dip was the bang for your buck. You got two treats for the price of one, plus it was impossible to eat quickly. Adult swim would go by in the blink of an eye while I slowly made my way through the small paper packet of deliciousness. By the end, I’d have a bit of stick remaining, which, with its neutral sugar flavor, would act as a palette cleanser to the fruity dust. I’d lick my wrinkly fingers, and with the taste of chlorine and sugar in my mouth think “I wish I never had to go back to school.”

Candygrams are odes to candy by guest authors during the month of October. You can see all of the past Candygrams here and here.

Jessica Hische is a crazy cat lady known for her lettering, silly projects, and occasional foul mouth.

Kern and Shape Type

2011-10-26T17:30:41+00:00

Just in case you were under the impression that type design or typography are easy, I suggest you try out Kern Type and Shape Type, two fun game from Mark MacKay for Method of Action. Each game tasks you with correcting default and malformed spacing, and then ranks you against the correct solution. It’s instructive and humbling! Hug your designer today.

Monkey Nuts, Barmbrack and Apples

2011-10-21T16:40:42+00:00

by Jeremy Keith

I grew up in Ireland, the home of Halloween.

I know that it seems like a quintessentially American holiday, but Halloween has its roots in the Celtic feast of Samhain. The Americans embraced and extended Halloween, adding the tradition of trick-or-treating, which in turn made its way back to Ireland.

I spent many of my childhood Halloweens trick-or-treating in the town of Tralee in County Kerry with my cousins. It’s funny, but when I think back to those times, I can’t think of any specific sweets (or “candy”, as the Americans would say). Instead I think of three other foodstuffs: monkey nuts, barmbrack, and apples.

“Monkey nuts?” you ask. Before you get too excited, thinking that perhaps you are about to hear of some previously unknown species of nut, I have to break it to you that monkey nuts are simply peanuts in the shell. I don’t know if it was an Irish phrase or a Kerry thing or just something my cousins said but I remember them always being called monkey nuts. And for some reason, they were always in plentiful supply at Halloween.

And what of this barmbrack of which I speak? That was a cakey bread that my aunt would bake. It was filled with raisins and much more besides. An inventory of the ingredients would reveal such incongruous items as a pea, a coin, a stick, a rag, and a ring. If you found one of those items in your slice of barmbrack, it prophesied your future. The rag meant that you would be poor, but the coin promised a life of riches. If you got the ring, you would be getting married soon, but if you got the pea, then your marriage prospects were bleak. Oh, and the stick: that meant you were going to beat your wife.

Apples were omnipresent at Halloween, which is unsurprising given that it was apple season. Of course we indulged in the game of bobbing for apples, but there was another game we played in Kerry called Snap Apple. In this game, an apple was suspended from a string. Holding your hands behind your back, you had to try to take a bite of the apple. It’s harder than it sounds.

I remember one of my cousins hammering a nail into the frame above the kitchen door so that we could attach the string for the apple. Even my uncle, normally a fairly dour man, didn’t seem to mind the boisterous disruption of the children playing these Halloween games.

My uncle passed away a few years ago, but my aunt tells me that she sometimes looks at the nail that’s still there above the door and smiles at the memory of those happy times.

Candygrams are odes to candy by guest authors during the month of October. You can see all of the past Candygrams here and here.

Jeremy Keith is an Irish web developer living in Brighton, England where he works with Clearleft. You should unfollow him on Twitter.

New Browsing UI at Typekit

2011-10-20T16:46:02+00:00

We just launched something over at Typekit that we’ve been working on for some time: a brand new interface for browsing our type library.

This release had lots of moving parts, including devising a new classification system that worked with our offerings, and retagging every last one of our fonts. We had built up some crufty tags in the last couple of years, so I’m happy to say that things are nice and tidy now (and vastly simplified).

But my favorite part of all is the new visual interface for browsing fonts. Type can be difficult for newcomers to understand, there are lots of strange terms that don’t always sound like what they mean. Type is a visual entity, so what better way to browse and sort typefaces than through a visual interface. This has the benefit of quicker recognizability, and the interface itself serves as a key to the terminology. We can show you what the terms means, so you learn as your browse.

This is actually just the groundwork for some big things we’ve been busy with. Now that this is out there, we can start rolling out even more wonderful things. Hold on tight!

You can read more about what went into the new browsing UI on the Typekit blog, and you can check it out for yourself here.

Two New A Book Aparts!

2011-10-17T23:26:46+00:00

We're very excited to release not one, but two, new A Book Apart titles today. We're finishing up our publishing year with a big splash; first with Designing for Emotion by Aarron Walter, and next with Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski. These guys are both personal UX/design heroes of mine and their books really hit home. Here's an appetizer from the back cover of Aarron's book:

Make your users fall in love with your site via the precepts packed into this brief, charming book by MailChimp user experience design lead Aarron Walter. From classic psychology to case studies, highbrow concepts to common sense, Designing for Emotion demonstrates accessible strategies and memorable methods to help you make a human connection through design.

And now from Luke's:

Our industry’s long wait for the complete, strategic guide to mobile web design is finally over. Former Yahoo! design architect and co-creator of Bagcheck Luke Wroblewski knows more about mobile experience than the rest of us, and packs all he knows into this entertaining, to-the-point guidebook. Its data-driven strategies and battle tested techniques will make you a master of mobile—and improve your non-mobile design, too!

These books round out many of the topics covered in the first few ABA titles, as well directly connecting the dots set up from Erin and Ethan's books. And if you've ever read their sites or seen these two gents speak, you'll know they can weave a compelling yarn.

Last but not least, the latest version of iBooks has support for embedded fonts. So now you can enjoy the ePubs for these titles with the same type as the paperbacks!

We have some great stuff coming for you in 2012, including my book (yipe!), but for now head on over and check out Designing for Emotion and Mobile First! Oh, and you can get them both together (paperback or digital) and save! Or just dip your toe in and preview both book in this week's A List Apart.

Instapaper 4

2011-10-17T14:26:22+00:00

The previous Instapaper icon on the left, and the updated icon on the right.

Instapaper 4.0 is out! Instapaper is one of the best iOS apps around. It lets you save articles from the web for offline reading, and strips out everything but the article text and images. It’s especially great for a subway commute.

This time up, I had a hand in the latest version. Marco Arment asked me to help him clean up the logo, typography, and colors in the app, as well as help oversee the creation of new in-app icons from David Lanham from Iconfactory and a new app icon from Dan Cederholm.

We are all big lovers of Instapaper, so we made sure not to mess with a good thing. We just updated the visuals and tried to apply a consistency throughout the app. The type tweaks we made might not be readily apparent, but yow those new icons look nice.

Read more about the release, and the slew of new/updated features, over at Marco’s blog. And you can grab it in the App Store today.

Chunky in Fury

2011-10-07T14:30:17+00:00

by Mike Monteiro

It’s January of 1979 and we’re sitting inside the Plymouth Fury outside an AM/PM Mini Market in North Philadelphia.

My father’s loyalty to Chrysler automobiles may be the defining commitment of his life. The blue Fury had replaced the black Valiant, which was even bigger. In three years it will be replaced by a Volaré station wagon, perhaps a nod to the suburban family life he continually promised my mother. The Volaré will be the first car he doesn’t allow himself to smoke in.

It’s snowing outside. East coast post-Christmas snow that only starts after the sun has gone down at 3 in the afternoon. My father hasn’t worked since winter shut down most of the construction jobs in the city and is rummaging through the glove compartment for any change he can add to the few crumpled dollars in his hand. I think of offering him the 50¢ in my pocket and then decide against it.

“Be right back.”

I’m watching the snow fall in front of the streetlights overhead wondering if it’ll snow enough to shut down school tomorrow. A man tries to wipe the windshield with a dirty copy of today’s Bulletin and I instinctively reach for the door lock. It’s 1979 and we are still afraid of black people.

My father walks out of the mini-market and starts to pump gas. It doesn’t take long to pump $3 worth of gas. He gets in the car and I sit up. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a Chunky, and tosses it at me. He reaches over and tussles my hair. I unwrap the Chunky and take a bite out of it, offering him a bite as well, which he declines with a wave of his hand.

He’s about to start the car when I ask, “Why did you pick me up from school today?”

Now, I don’t know how many of you have ever had a Chunky. It’s a solid brick of chocolate. A funny polygonal brick. Apparently, it was originally intended to be a pyramid, but the packaging was so problematic that the inventor just lopped the top of the pyramid right off. There’s raisins and nuts in there, but they’re almost a rounding error. You do not break pieces off a Chunky. You either take giant bites out of it, putting your teeth at risk, or you shove the entire thing in your mouth, a contest between melting and choking.

So when I ask my father, with a mouth full of chocolate, why he’d picked me up at school that day, which, by the way, is the longest thing I’ve said to him since Christmas, I imagine it sounds more like, “Ididjoopickepfumskultday?”

He pulls the keys out of the ignition and sits back. We sit in silence for a few minutes staring at the snow falling outside. A SEPTA train crosses the overpass in front of us. He leans over, grabs the Chunky out of my hand and takes a bite, leaving me the last one.

“Your grandfather called this morning.”

My mouth is full of chocolate.

“Your grandmother is gone.”

Candygrams are odes to candy by guest authors during the month of October. You can see all of the past Candygrams here and here.

Mike Monteiro is a designer living in San Francisco. He’s more uncomfortable with himself than you are with him.

Chunky in Fury

Gavin Rothery

2011-10-04T16:59:02+00:00

Gavin Rothery’s site is my new favorite blog. He’s the visual effects supervisor from the excellent 2009 film Moon, and he posts behind-the-scenes tales from his favorite sci-fi films and rundowns of other special effects designers, and all his posts include cast photos and conceptual artwork. So much to love here. Here are some recent favorites on Star Wars, Alien (x2), and Blade Runner, but there is a wealth of good stuff in the archives.

Branding 10,000 Lakes

2011-09-27T18:31:50+00:00

Nicole Meyer has embarked on a fun project:

Lake logos have a tendency to be, well, fairly ugly. This project was created to rethink what they could be.

One Minnesota Lake. One Logo. Every day.

Should only take a little over 27 years to hit ‘em all. Stay tuned and enjoy!

What a fantastic design exercise! Even if it might take a little while…

Illusory Typography

2011-09-19T16:17:19+00:00

Stephen Doyle, that super smart guy that everyone loves, created some lovely tape illustration/lettering/installations for a New York Times Magazine story this weekend. Lots of people do these type illusions, but few do it this well. Check out the tape on the skeleton’s ribs! I want to be Stephen Doyle when I grow up. Also, don’t miss the behind the scenes video.