matt.cc

I mentioned yesterday that Orbitron has been accepted into The...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:00:14 -0500

I mentioned yesterday that Orbitron has been accepted into The League of Moveable Type, so I’ve been working to finish everything up. I just wanted to post an update. I’ve added a lot to the typeface since I first submitted it. It now has a full lowercase set, 4 full weights, small caps, and 3 stylistic sets (meaning a ton of alternate characters). My goal is to have it online sometime this week.

Yes for Orbitron!

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:40:54 -0500

Yes for Orbitron!:

The League of Moveable Type has accepted Orbitron into their library of typefaces. I just finished tweaking the Medium and Bold weights tonight. I’ve got 2 more weights to finish, then it’s time for release. This was the post on their blog by the way:

Yay, our very first round of font submission voting has come to an end, and the out come was an overwhelming vote of yes for Orbitron! Good job to our newest League contributor Mr. Matt McInerney.

The perfectionist that he is, Matt is currently working on last tweaks for the font, but you shall see his typeface on The League’s site in the very near future, so stay tuned!

Thanks everyone for participating, we’re glad to have your input on this. See y’all next time!

Above is the logo I designed for an original folk opera called...

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:14:22 -0500

Above is the logo I designed for an original folk opera called Truth about the African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth. I got involved because my mother is one of the producers of this opera. All the type in the logo above is completely custom. I designed it to look like stray letters gathered from old sets of wood type, printed years ago and worn.

The opera is currently raising money through Kickstarter and offering thank you gifts for different levels of donation. If you’d like to support this original production, click through, watch the video, and donate.

Level was a brand/logo idea I was working on for a project that...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:13:32 -0400

Level was a brand/logo idea I was working on for a project that I don’t think I’ll be using, but I hate to throw away an ambigram, so I thought I’d at least post it. As far as ambigram design goes, it’s definitely not the most difficult one I’ve designed, but I do like that it’s bold, clean, and legible. Maybe I can repurpose this in the future, but for now, just some eye candy.

About a week ago I submitted my typeface Orbitron to The League...

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:07:00 -0400

About a week ago I submitted my typeface Orbitron to The League of Moveable Type. Since then it’s received 75 votes, about 95% of which have voted for it to be included in The League’s growing library of typefaces. I’ve been thrilled with the response so as a thank you to everyone, I’ve designed a lowercase alphabet for Orbitron. The voting continues, so I encourage you to go vote if you haven’t already. If you have, thank you. I’ll continue to work on Orbitron through the voting period and you can look for it’s release soon.

Orbitron is a typeface I’ve been working on the past...

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:15:00 -0400

Orbitron is a typeface I’ve been working on the past couple of months and I’ve just submitted it The League of Moveable Type for possible inclusion in their library of free and open source fonts. You can currently vote for Orbitron on their blog, so if you’d like to see the typeface above released for free through The League, please go vote Yes.

And if you have never heard of The League, I’d advise you to go check it out. I decided to submit Orbitron there before I did anything else with it because I’m really interested in what they’re doing.

This is the follow up to my previous post about redesigning the...

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:15:00 -0400

Scrabble Package Redesign

Folded and Unfolded

The Board and Tiles

Cover Image

Front and Back

The Board/Inside

This is the follow up to my previous post about redesigning the Scrabble logo. This is the entire academic project: my concept for redesigning the Scrabble packaging. My design strips away the need for a box to hold your board and instead turns the package into the product. This new Scrabble board functions more like a book, featuring the logo and instructions on the outside, with a board on the inside that’s revealed as you open the package. The two pieces/boxes that make up the package and board are hollow and features tabs at the top that can be opened. This is where you’ll find your Scrabble pieces and tiles. To keep the package shut, I embedded two magnets in the material on opposite sides of the board.

The new package is only about 10 inches tall, so it can fit comfortably on a bookshelf, no need to stack it on top of or underneath other board games. This package also cuts down on materials used to make the game. There’s no need to put a box or slip around this, the cover serves as a display for the product on store shelves. If you’d like to see higher quality photos of the project you can check them out on flickr.

Fund the “Designing Obama” Book

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:07:00 -0400

Fund the “Designing Obama” Book:

Scott Thomas, The Design Director of the Obama campaign, is raising funds for a book called “Designing Obama”. The book chronicles art from Obama’s historic campaign. Some of the artists featured include Paula Scher, Jonathan Hoefler, Chuck Anderson, David Carson, Derek Hess, Scott Hansen, and a ton more. It also features a foreword by Michael Bierut and Steven Heller. The project is currently being funded through Kickstarter and has raised $51,000 of the $65,000 that they need with just 17 days to go.

For a pledge of $10 you will receive a digital copy. For a pledge of $50 you’ll get a hard copy. I’d really love to see this book get made. Hopefully you do too so digg it, reblog it, tweet it, and pledge.

This is just one part of a larger academic project in which...

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:29:00 -0400

This is just one part of a larger academic project in which I’m taking the Scrabble packaging (the board, the tiles, the box) and re-imagining & redesigning it. One of my first steps in the process was redesigning the wordmark. In case you weren’t aware, Scrabble rebranded in March 2008, ditched the iconic logo that I’m sure we all remember as kids, and moved towards a slicker, more contemporary looking wordmark. There are a few elements of the wordmark that I think are good, but for the most part, I don’t like it. I think it abandons too much of the original wordmark’s character and I think dropping the ‘S’ especially is a mistake.

So I tried identifying exactly what I like about the old and the new, pointing it out, and redesigning from there. I wanted to revive some heritage and clean up some problem areas. Above you can see some of the process and the result.

I’ll post pictures of more process and final results soon. Also a quick note: this isn’t an official change, this is my own take on the logo for academic purposes. Feel free to reblog it, but I think that’s an important note to include with it.

This was my submission to the recent Ambigram Challenge. The...

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:25:00 -0400

This was my submission to the recent Ambigram Challenge. The theme was resurrection. This one says ‘ashes to dust.’ Unfortunately it didn’t win. The winner was submitted by the great ambigram designer, John Langdon.

This was a little challenge I created for myself: design an...

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:48:14 -0400

This was a little challenge I created for myself: design an ambigram in the smallest space possible. I figured I’d try 16x16 pixels since it’s the standard favicon size and it’s smallest space I’ve ever had to design anything for previously. Obviously I had to pick a shorter word, so I thought ‘tiny’ would be appropriate. Turns out I was able to do it using only 38 pixels (not including negative space). I’ve never seen any claim of this before so I’m going to claim it now: This is the world’s smallest ambigram. If you can beat me though, I welcome a challenger. Takers?

I mentioned the ‘Game’ typeface I worked on while at Pentagram...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:52:32 -0400

I mentioned the ‘Game’ typeface I worked on while at Pentagram about a month ago. I just found this video of Drew Carey on the Late Late Show. He brought on some bumper stickers designed by Pentagram, featuring that typeface. Check out the video above starting around 3:00 to see it. It’s the first time I’ve seen any of my own work on national television. I was pretty excited.

The US Bid committee is currently having a ‘Stick and Win’ contest featuring these bumper stickers. If you want to get one and stick it someplace notible, check out GoUSABid.com.

This ‘Murphy’s Law’ ambigram was suggested by Nagfa. Nagfa runs...

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:39:00 -0400

This ‘Murphy’s Law’ ambigram was suggested by Nagfa. Nagfa runs his own ambigram blog where you can see a bunch of his work. He was also recently interviewed by Ambigram Magazine. Since he knows a thing or two about wordplay I thought I’d take his suggestions and give it a shot. I resisted the urge to check out his take on this adage until after I finished. But now that I’m done, check out Nagfa’s Murphy’s Law design and compare.

The first round of suggestions was fun, so let’s try another round. What word or phrase would make a good ambigram?

Physical and Digital Distribution Concept

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:34:00 -0400

The crossroads we’re at between physical distribution and strictly digital distribution is one that plenty of media distributors are dealing with right now. Rather than approach the entire problem, I wanted to try solving one specific problem. If the solution proves to be a successful one, hopefully the concept can be abstracted or re-purposed to solve other problems.

The documentary film Objectified is about manufactured products and the people who design them. One of the topics the film addresses, and one that has stuck with me, is not just how we use these products but what happens to these products after we use them. When I saw the film, I was lucky enough to catch a screening with director Gary Hustwit in attendance, so we were able to ask questions after the film. One of the things Gary expressed interest in was being able to distribute the film in a way that wouldn’t further pollute the world with products that can’t be easily recycled once they no longer serve their purpose. Since then he has announced a limited USB edition that comes on a flash drive that can be reused once you drag the film onto your desktop. He’s also announced that Objectified will be released on iTunes as a digital download.

The idea of combining the digital download of the film with something physical that can reused got me thinking. While the digital download is the least wasteful of all, I can still imagine that there are plenty of people who want something physical, something designed, something they can bring home with them. Much like when you go see a concert, you know you can download that band’s album on iTunes later, but there’s something about the experience of bringing home that album that still serves a purpose. So the question becomes: How can one bridge the gap between physical and digital distribution, serve a secondary function, and create as little waste as possible?

My idea is to combine the concept of the iTunes gift card, where one scratches the card like a lottery ticket to reveal a code, and an iPhone/iPod stand. The combination would allow someone to see a screening of the film, walk home with a copy of the film, and use the package that copy came in to watch the film.

The execution is pretty simple. I created a dieline, I’ve chosen the size of a business card so it will fit in your wallet, I printed a design on it, and included a space for a code that can be redeemed in iTunes in exchange for one copy of Objectified. The dieline is based on an instructables how-to, but with modified angles and tabs added to make the stand as sturdy as possible.

The way the card works for the user: Scratch off the code, download the film, sync to your iPod/iPhone, fold the card along the dotted lines, place the device in the stand, watch your movie.

The card could be printed on a recycled/recyclable card stock for minimum environmental impact. You can use the stand for as long as necesary, then simply recycle the 2x3.5 inch card.

This is just a concept at the moment, but if anyone would like to make use of the idea please get in touch with me.

I designed this ‘Dave’ ambigram after a post on Typophile this...

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:34:52 -0400

I designed this ‘Dave’ ambigram after a post on Typophile this morning. I thought it’d be fun to try to come up with some ambigram ideas on there, while I wait for the results of the resurrected ambigram.com challenge. Perhaps I’ll just put the question up here: Any suggestions for a good ambigram? And has anyone else on tumblr been designing their own?

I’ve tried a ‘matt’ ambigram before but for some reason I...

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:46:00 -0400

I’ve tried a ‘matt’ ambigram before but for some reason I never thought of giving ‘matthew’ a shot until now. As soon as I started though, it all just seemed to click. Flip over a lowercase ‘ma’ and you can easily see the ‘ew.’ Then just combine ‘tt‘ into a ligature, flip it and you’ve got ‘H.’ Perhaps my next business card will feature this ambigram, unless I can figure out a way to flip ‘matthew’ into ‘mcinerney.’

P.S. I’m trying this ambigram an animated GIF of this one to see if more people get it without reading…

"The practical results of these two competing philosophies have been extreme and ridiculous...."

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:43:00 -0400

“The practical results of these two competing philosophies have been extreme and ridiculous. Modernist designers find the ultimate end of their philosophy in a solid black square printed on a canvas—the perfect symbol of unbroken unity. And way out in left field, the post-modernists find the end of their road in photographs of urinals and meaningless paint splatter. It’s fortunate that most designers don’t work these philosophies out to their logical conclusions. There is no place in reality for either of these approaches. In order to maintain a foot in reality, I’ve found that most modern graphic designers and web designers unwittingly hold both views simultaneously in an irrational tension. This tension keeps them from floating too far one way or the other, but as you will see, this irrational balancing act is unnecessary in the Christian worldview.”

- Matthew Griffin on Modernism and Post-Modernism Applied.

The irony of ending on that last sentence is so painfully obvious I could barely finish the article…

The overall article actually features a few interesting points if you remove it from a Christian context. However, I couldn’t help but re-read this paragraph a couple of times hoping to find some implied sarcasm..

Pangrams on Tumblr

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 12:29:20 -0400

Pangrams on Tumblr:

“I just organized a tumblr group where everyone can quickly post pangrams, uses the typeface Axel.”

That’s my pangram announcing a new tumblr group dedicated to pangrams. If you’re not sure what a pangram is:

A pangram (Greek: pan gramma, “every letter”), or holoalphabetic sentence, is a sentence using every letter of the alphabet at least once.

I started the #pangram game on twitter a few days ago and I thought this would be a fun way to save some favorites. If you haven’t followed it, search the hashtag #pangram on twitter to see a few.

Pangrams are often used when displaying typefaces, so if you’d like to use any of the tumblr group pangrams with your own type specimens, feel free. If you’d like to submit your own to the group, go for it.

I can’t seem to stop with the ambigrams so here’s...

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:36:40 -0400

I can’t seem to stop with the ambigrams so here’s another one. This one: ‘infinity’ based on Bodoni. It seemed appropriate. Spin it and it just keeps going and going and going…

This is a rotional antonym ambigram of Better/Worse. I’ve...

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:33:59 -0400

This is a rotional antonym ambigram of Better/Worse. I’ve posted both orientations so you don’t have to stand on your head. I might have made up the term antyonm ambigram but I’ve done it before with Give/Take and of course everyone has seen the famous Life/Death one.