Less Than You Think

Graphic designers are the new DJs.

I paid a visit to Krudmart on Elmwood Ave. yesterday to check out the cool Tees and I thought this was a pretty funny graphic- graphic desigr. Everyone wants to be/is a graphic designer, you know... Everyone with a computer and a mouse is 'designing'. Stevie is right, everyone is doing it. Unfortunately you need skills to do both...

As my friend Nate always says about DJs... 'Look at me, I am playing other people's music!"

Fall is upon us. The tree still stands 4 weeks later. And we don't stop rockin'-- courtesy of the latest Scion CD featuring Chicago DJs Flosstradamus!

So Hard Done By

Fontastic!

I have been in a real font mood ever since I saw Gary Hustwit's Helvetica movie a few months back, and on top of all that, hearing the news that TypeCon will be in Buffalo next Summer is awesome! Like I had previously mentioned, Jill and I attended the Toronto edition in 2002, and it was a lot of fun.

Anyway with fonts on the mind, I give you this little bit of font-geekery. Mark Simonson, freelance graphic designer and type designer from St. Paul, Minnesota (who started in graphic design in 1976- my kind of guy!) has published this interesting bit about movies using incorrect fonts. Fonts out of place, mostly fonts from different eras misplaced-- like fonts from the '70s appearing in movies supposedly set in the 40s?! Ha! Attention to detail- very important!

The article is called Typecasting: The Use (and Misuse) of Period Typography in Movies and it includes references to Chocolat-- set in the '50s using ITC Benguiat, a typeface which debuted in 1978 and was mainly popular in the '80s and Ed Wood-- set in the '50s using Chicago, the original Macintosh system font (TrueType version, 1991). It also details movies that have painstakingly correctly used period fonts as well.

Pretty font geeky, I must say. Read it/view it/click it hear.

Another cool article Mark Simonson has written is 'The Scourge of Arial".
You graphic freaks know what I am talking about.... Helvetica it ain't!

Check the Mic

Contextual Design Workshop has come up with a cool alternate for an iPod case made from reclaimed cassette tape cases. And you thought you saw the last of the lowly cassette. 45 different tapes are available including the TDK D-90, TDK SA-90, and the popular BASF CR-S II 90.

If you buy one would you scribble a title across it? Check them out.

32 Flavors

Food and t-shirts- together at last.

Lifelounge asked 22 designers to come up with a T design based on assigned flavour of ice cream. The results have been posted, check them out. One of my favorites is French Vanilla designed by Australian artist Dylan Martorell.

They are not cheap, but the are limited edition and come in a really cool package. Proceeds from the sale of these limited edition shirts goes to various charities (helping to feed the homeless).

Here are the 22 complete tees ready for your consumption. Get in lickety-split.

Skyscraper.... I Love You

New York's Metropolis Magazine has always been an interesting mix of design and architecture. The masthead describes the mag as:

"Metropolis examines contemporary life through design—architecture, interior design, product design, graphic design, crafts, planning, and preservation. Subjects range from the sprawling urban environment to intimate living spaces to small objects of everyday use."

Online they posted a neat feature to celebrate last year's 25 years in print (25 YEARS OF ARCHITECTURE DESIGN) which is a slide show retrospect of 25 memorable covers from the past and moments associated with them.

It is interesting to see how the older covers had a cutting edge feel (for the time) but still had a pasted togetherness about them. We had a subscription back in the late 90s and I remember the cover possessing a strange, modern, old fashioned vibe. I was always inspired by the masthead getting lopped off the page-- too close to the edge? Metropolis is always a great intersection of design-life-building things.

METROPOLIS- Covering Design for 25 Years (link launches a Flash page)

Swamp Music

The posts have been far and few in-between as we ran smack right into September. The kids are at school and we have been digging in deep as our design company is busy, busy, busy. On top of all that we have just received some bad news-- the city is going to cut down the huge tree in front of my house!

The tree is the oldest one on my block and it is uncool that is has been marked for execution. Though a few 'experts' have reviewed it and said it is probably not long for this world-- but ya know, it has lasted this long and it is full of GREEN leaves.... It is probably just a causality of the 'October-Storm-tree-chopping' that has run rampant in the Queen City.

So we will bid farewell to an old friend- the tree-killers are planning on coming back Thursday or Friday to execute her and all her majestic beauty. It is gonna leave quite a bare spot on our lawn, the street and in our hearts.