Can you weave a type?

This is how weave involved in type creating….

Typografic Illustrations

This is how typography can be visualized! Here are some of a successfull typographer and illustrator Alex Trochut’s works.

http://abduzeedo.com

A newborn baby!

Urikane created a new font from 540 iPhone applications and at the end there comes out a delighted view. Just have a look at it!

*And for more visit http://urikane.com/

The New Typography

In the 1920s and 1930s, the so-called New Typography movement brought graphics and information design to the forefront of the artistic avant-garde in Central Europe. Rejecting traditional arrangement of type in symmetrical columns, modernist designers organized the printed page or poster as a blank field in which blocks of type and illustration (frequently photomontage) could be arranged in harmonious, strikingly asymmetrical compositions. Taking his lead from currents in Soviet Russia and at the Weimar Bauhaus, the designer Jan Tschichold codified the movement with accessible guidelines in his landmark book Die Neue Typographie (1928). Almost overnight, typographers and printers adapted this way of working for a huge range of printed matter, from business cards and brochures to magazines, books, and advertisements. This installation of posters and numerous small-scale works is drawn from MoMA’s rich collection of Soviet Russian, German, Dutch, and Czechoslovakian graphics. They represent material from Tschichold’s own collection, which supported his teaching and publication from around 1927 to 1937.

Typographer’s Typography by Charlie Nix

an article by Charlie Nix from the site The Type Directors Club

http://www.dexigner.com/jump/directory/6628

Typographer’s Typography

The Type Directors Club has been advancing and preserving the best of typography for over 60 years. That’s a long time. Typography, the TDC annual, is testimony to the remarkable evolution of style and technology in our profession—from modernism to mashups, from metal type to Minion Pro, from bookplates to broadband. If the last 5000 days is any indication, the next 60 years will be even more remarkable.

We are living through a typographic renaissance. Over the past twenty years, there has been an explosion of typefaces, the like of which we have not seen since the introduction of the pantograph-punchcutting machine and the Linotype in 1880s. The internet has evolved to include typographic communities–selling, sharing, celebrating, and critiquing type. Design education programs are springing up everywhere, and with them, a host of typography courses. Typographic awareness is at an all time high. Many are discovering and rediscovering the work of legendary typographers. And many of them are among the TDC’s earliest members: Aaron Burns, Freeman Craw, Louis Dorfsman, Gene Federico, Ed Gottschall, Herb Lubalin, Bradbury Thompson, and Hermann Zapf.

Against this backdrop, the Club launched an initiative to rebrand itself–to reflect more accurately the nature of what we do, the sphere in which we as typographers operate, and the members who make up the Club. An identity committee was formed, a design brief was created, and another legendary designer (and 29-year TDC veteran) was approached: Mr. Roger Black.

Roger’s record of revamping publications and branding companies speaks for itself. His typography is bold, iconic. He is steadfast in his dedication to typographic detail, in print (the Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, magazines like Rolling Stone, Esquire, and lately, the Washington Post and Commentary magazine) and on screen (Bloomberg.com, msnbc.com, Discovery.com, and @Home). He’s a typographer’s typographer, and we were thrilled when he agreed to take on the project. His response to the brief is brilliantly elegant. Both informal and monumental, it’s bold lowercase forms reference the Club’s web present/presence, while the incorporation of the previous mark (designed by Gerard Huerta) acknowledges the Club’s rich history. Roger chose the new ITC Franklin Gothic, carefully redesigned and re-digitized by Font Bureau chief, David Berlow.

The new logo is already out there, acting as our silent ambassador. It’s on the new TDC letterhead, to be sure, and on the revamped TDC website (designed, maintained, expanded daily by board member Brian Miller, after the template set by Mr. Black). You’ll also see it on Twitter and Facebook, and soon, members will be able to feature it on their own sites as a TDC membership badge.

The Club is deeply grateful to Roger, to David, and to the Identity Committee: former board members Ted Mauseth and Maxim Zhukov, TDC Vice President Diego Vainesman, board member Matteo Bologna, and TDC chairman emeritus Gary Munch.

* From the Font Bureau site: “In 1902 American Type Founders’ release of Franklin Gothic introduced Morris Fuller Benton. In 1979 Victor Caruso, International Typeface Corporation, increased the series to four photocomp weights, Light, Medium, Bold and Black, all with italics. In 1991 David Berlow added Condensed, Compressed and Extra Compressed widths. Berlow has completed his definitive revision, a single new series, ITC Franklin; FB 2008″

Postcard of a Painting

cover and illustrations by driemaandelijks for a magazine

for more http://www.postcardofapainting.com/

Michael Bierut on the MillerCoors logo design

a post that I got from brand new about a logo design by Michael Bierut.

BY Christian Palino

A Glass Half Full

On June 30th, SABMiller plc and Molson Coors announced their joint venture Miller Coors to consolidate resources and compete with greater combined force in the U.S. market. From their first press release Chief Executive Leo Kiely states “MillerCoors will be entrepreneurial, with the ability to operate with speed and agility in the marketplace, backed by the powerful combined resources of two exceptionally successful companies. We will drive profitable growth and bring new energy to the U.S. beer industry. Our focus now is to deliver on the $500 million in identified annualized cost synergies by improving sourcing across our eight major breweries, building a streamlined organization and leveraging the scale of the new company. Our talented people are experienced and passionate about this business and — importantly — are determined to win.” For the face of this new company, Pentagram’s partner Michael Bierut, and designers Katie Repine and Ben King developed a logo based upon the view of a glass of beer from above.

Corporate logos.

Consumer logos.

It’s important to note that this is not a product logo planned for the consumer marketplace, but for corporate communication and as a parent brand for the U.S. representation of beer brands such as Coors, Miller Genuine Draft, Molson Canadian, Foster’s, and, a personal italian favorite, Peroni. I have to admit, I didn’t see the glass of beer immediately and was briefly stumped until that ah-ha!-arrow-in-the-FedEx-logo moment (I’m not comparing the two, they have different contexts and goals and time spent for that arrow to become an almost mythic example). Of course, the logo animation developed by Favorite Color and seen here on Pentagram’s blog best illustrates this representation, and once seen makes the visualization unforgettable. In addition to the half-full pint of libation is the name “MillerCoors” locked up in a respectable, grey sans serif with tight kerning (perhaps too tight in the example of the quasi-ligated “rCo” which creates an overly compressed and noisy typographic quirk), creating a rather neutral visual palette as a strong foundation for the diverse brands they will sell.

Tom Long, President of MillerCoors, enjoys a cold one. Photo Bloomgberg News

This logo is undoubtedly smart and unique in its approach to representing beer and its consumption, and is miles beyond most of its competing corporations’ visual brands. One of the most impressive attributes of the branding is the color palette that emerges from generating a flattened glass of suds — an amber and grey combination with amazing screen accuracy and own-ability. However, there are some open questions about how this logo will hold up in all the familiar corporate contexts required. While we do live in an increasingly digital world, as a corporate brand that will work hard between the product brands and in B2B environments, this is a logo that will likely need to live at small and large sizes, in one-color and four-color environments and on everything from newsprint and embroidered shirts to bottle labels — a tough line-up for a graphic story that relies on the subtleties of a multi-color environment. I look forward to experiencing this logo out there in the world and seeing how Michael and company’s work will answer all these contexts of use.

I asked Michael about the process involved, the origins of the idea for this visualization of a glass of beer, about the typography used and how they approached the reproduction constraints including the digital ones. Herein are some of his insights:

Michael Bierut: We worked directly with the company’s marketing leadership in developing a wide range of possibilities for the identity, and then presented what we agreed were the most promising directions to CEO Leo Kiley and President Tom Long. The most important thing about the identity is that it represents a business operation, not a brewing operation. You won’t be able to go into a bar and buy MillerCoors beer. The mark won’t replace any of the brands, won’t appear on any bottles, and will be largely invisible to the beer consuming public. It will be seen by the employees, business partners, investors, and other business-to-business audiences.

So the trick was to come up with a mark that would seem to be all about beer while looking distinct from the iconography of the Miller and Coors brands. This pretty much sabotaged my first idea, which was to somehow merge the two iconic script logos. I was sure it could be done, but it turns out it was impossible to make it work visually, even if it was a good idea. Plus, our clients really wanted to signal that this wasn’t just about consolidating the heritage of the two families, but about creating something new.

The idea of the beer glass came from a couple of remarks about the new company being “focused on beer.” The move from focus to lens to beer glass was a natural transition that happened in the series of iterations.

Because of the limited, and relatively controllable, number of applications, we were confident that the relatively complex color rendition would work in most cases. There is also a flat, one color, black and white version which is very abstract but which a lot of people like a lot.

Logo Design Trends 2009

The site logoorange.com explains that:

“To stand out and be refreshingly different at whatever cost – that’s the message we’re getting from today’s logos. From an identity point of view, web 2.0 logos failed miserably. They may not be around for too long. Copycat websites may still work, but when it comes to identities, designers will have to roll up their sleeves and work much harder.

Designers have become far more aware and sensitive to design history movements and styles than they were in previous years. They are discovering ways to make logos reflect their roots.

Minimalism was a strong anchor for swooshes, sparkling little balls and other accidental manifestations. But we’re witnessing a fading out of minimalism, and this weakness is paving the way for spectacular remixes to take over.

A particular style can’t emerge and expect to stay at the top indefinitely. Developments in logo design indicate that trends have a short lifespan, going through a “now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t” kind of roller coaster.

New trends emerge only to be contradicted by others that go the opposite direction.

After the proliferation of “bastard” icons, the new logos are harder to reproduce given their solid sense of originality and craftsmanship.

2009 ushers in something new, something experimental, something outrageous. More will be the new less. Strong visibility and passion are the dictating themes.”

Psychedelic Pop Backgrounds

Origami

Tactile Logos

Arabesque

Classic Modernism

Pictograms

80’s Geometry Lesson

Typographic Logos

Street Art

Puzzle Patterns

ANIVERS

ANIVERS-Birth of a typeface

by Jos Buivenga

“When I was asked by Smashing Magazine (SM) in 2007 if I could release a free font to celebrate their first anniversary I first thought that the release of Museo could very well be that font. However, it was nowhere near ready and, not wishing to rush things, I started to play around with some sharp elements I liked to see if something could grow out of it.

Still far too constructed of course, but the sharp elements did offer nice connections which I decided to keep and transpose to other characters as a key feature of Anivers.

To give more attention to that detail I changed all other finishing strokes to angular ones.

When I e-mailed the first images for response to SM and revealed the name Anivers they were really thrilled and that was a great motivation. Working on Anivers was in this case a little different, because it had to remain a secret. Usually at some stage I post previews on my blog to get feedback and to get an idea if a font is worth finishing.

Refining and expanding

Still lots to be done. I only had a base, a feeling of how it should look. In the first print tests I did, the x-height was too small and the whole image of the font looked too fat. Once adjusted I worked out the other (basic Latin) characters, tested spacing and did some preliminary kerning runs. When all was to my liking I fitted Anivers with CE and Esperanto language support (also a Versal ß) and expanded kerning.

Besides ligatures I designed and scripted contextual alternates for the f (and ff ligature) to prevent undesirable collisions.

Finally it was time to send her out to some people who tested the font on different systems with different programs. Anivers was released on September 5th 2007 and quickly became the second most popular/downloaded font of mine (after Delicious).

PART II — The Anivers family

It started with italic

In February 2008 Hans Lijklema, a Dutch designer living in Poland, contacted me because he was working on a book called the Free Font Index (to be published by Pepin Press later this year) and wanted my free fonts to be part of the book. Because Hans decided to set the book in Anivers, I asked him if he didn’t want an italic to set the interviews in.

I condensed the italic slightly and made it a tad lighter for better contrast with the regular weight. With the italic almost finished I decided that it would be nice to do a bold and a small caps version too and make it an official release.

With the extension of the Anivers family, the regular has undergone a major update. First it needed the same language support (Latin / Central European / Croatian / Romanian / Icelandic / Turkish / Esperanto) as the other fonts, and I improved several character shapes. I also took a fresh look at the numbers and currency signs. If you use the OpenType case feature together with stylistic alternates set 1, numbers can be easily processed. The case feature changes the currency signs and puts them and the numbers on a fixed width; and stylistic set 1 offers space, period, comma and hyphen that are half the width of the numbers. All weights and styles have family-consistent (equal) widths.

Igino Marini and iKern

Still in the middle of things and absolutely not finished, I got an e-mail from Igino Marini with a reworked version of my previous Anivers. He had spaced and kerned Anivers with his iKern app and it looked really great.

Last month I read this quote on Jos’s blog: “I work 4 days a week”. I felt in it the dichotomy between a job and a passion. Maybe because I was feeling the same. That’s why I sent him the iKerned version of Anivers telling: “My understanding now is that fitting is not a matter of art but just a technique. So I’d prefer to think you designing new faces than losing time in such a boring task”. He liked the prospective of a new workflow. Maybe because he’s struggling with time, like me. But I think because he didn’t feel dethroned as a designer. Building metrics is not a creative task. I can state this because iKern reconstructs the “rhythm” of letters extracting data from the outlines themselves: a way to follow the glyphs’ nature. I think Jos has been happy not only for the results. I think he understands that quality and productivity are main keys to “survive” today. — Igino Marini

My first question to Igino was if I could license iKern, but because that wasn’t possible (iKern is a service), I decided to have a go with Anivers to see how iKern could stand out, because I had seen how well the app performed with his own Fell Types. The font files were reworked by Igino and then send back. We did some test runs to determine spacing (family wide) and the level (tight <-> loose) of kerning. In the process of the test runs I adjusted character shapes that needed a better fit. All still (fortunately) has to be judged by the human eye and in the final release I adjusted a (very few) things manually. iKern makes it own classes for kerning and is extremely flexible. It really did the job for me.

The final family

The new Anivers has been expanded into a small but very rigid, reliable family. I’m very pleased with the end result and I’ve enjoyed every moment of the whole process.”

The new regular weight is still free. You can download or purchase Anivers at MyFonts.

Accidental design, flawed to success | Logo Design Love

Accidental design, flawed to success | Logo Design Love.

“I was working for Quiksilver as a tee shirt designer.” Said Dean Bradley. “In the building late one night I began to hand-write the company name. Unfortunately in the script I liked most the letters “ver” were horrible. So I went to the font that never let’s me down (Helvetica Neue) and used it at the end, creating a syllable-tempo logo. Quik, Sil, Ver with the “ver” set in type, and the rest in hand.

“It was the best selling font for the company for three years, on all products, and was fun to watch accepted by the masses.”

“A once in a lifetime accidental design, flawed to success.”