- some lovely posts from swissmiss on fonts, including the Periodic Table of Typefaces
- Read Regular, a font designed for dyslexics
- scarily, you can turn your handwriting into a font for use on your computer. Help. I've spent so much time writing shorthand or typing that my handwriting has become appalling, especially if I'm trying to write fast. (Sorry to anyone who gets one of my illegible Christmas cards - you needed to have known me at school, as I had beautiful handwriting then.)
- 13 ways of looking at a typeface. I like No1 - Because it works. Sometimes using a font just looks right.
Showing posts with label helvetica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label helvetica. Show all posts
11 March 2009
Letters
I'm a sucker for typefaces (especially Helvetica - although after my experience last year of watching the Helvetica documentary, my opinion may have dipped somewhat). I got sent a link to the rather wonderful Periodic Table of Typefaces today (via Patroclus), which reminded me of a few things I've been hoarding for a while:
15 October 2007
Arts Corner: Helvetica
On a normal occasion, this would have been a great documentary.
Sadly, I saw it on Saturday night at the Tyneside Cinema, as part of Design Event (linked in to the Dott 07 festival which is currently running on Tyneside). Billed as the documentary plus a talk from Ben Drury (record-sleeve designer) who would "introduce the film and talk about his work" it sounded like a top evening out for sad people who like fonts.
Lots of people showed up (mostly design students bearing notebooks - you can spot the designer glasses and black jumpers a mile off), and were shoe-horned into an overheated auditorium. The lights dimmed. Mr Drury got up to speak.
Now, I might be a bit out of touch with what happens at design events, being only a suburban nonentity, but I'd kind of assumed that the designer would talk a bit about the film, give us a bit of context about its importance, talk about his use of fonts and illustrate it all with a few pictures. Maybe 15-20 minutes, tops. What I hadn't bargained on was an hour-long trawl through a selection of photos of "things that mean something to me" (including endless record sleeves wot I have designed) with commentary in a monotone.
Reader, I took the only way out. I fell asleep.
Which put me in a rather bad mood for the film once I woke up and realised that I could have done this at home for rather less than £7.50 in rather greater comfort.
The film's not bad. It's got really good bits (Eric Spiekermann), it's got fairly dull bits, and it's about half an hour too long (although, that could be due to the fact that when you've already been sat there for an hour, bored witless, your capacity for boredom plummets).
I think it may be time to go back to the Hollywood blockbuster - Ratatouille, anyone?
Sadly, I saw it on Saturday night at the Tyneside Cinema, as part of Design Event (linked in to the Dott 07 festival which is currently running on Tyneside). Billed as the documentary plus a talk from Ben Drury (record-sleeve designer) who would "introduce the film and talk about his work" it sounded like a top evening out for sad people who like fonts.
Lots of people showed up (mostly design students bearing notebooks - you can spot the designer glasses and black jumpers a mile off), and were shoe-horned into an overheated auditorium. The lights dimmed. Mr Drury got up to speak.
Now, I might be a bit out of touch with what happens at design events, being only a suburban nonentity, but I'd kind of assumed that the designer would talk a bit about the film, give us a bit of context about its importance, talk about his use of fonts and illustrate it all with a few pictures. Maybe 15-20 minutes, tops. What I hadn't bargained on was an hour-long trawl through a selection of photos of "things that mean something to me" (including endless record sleeves wot I have designed) with commentary in a monotone.
Reader, I took the only way out. I fell asleep.
Which put me in a rather bad mood for the film once I woke up and realised that I could have done this at home for rather less than £7.50 in rather greater comfort.
The film's not bad. It's got really good bits (Eric Spiekermann), it's got fairly dull bits, and it's about half an hour too long (although, that could be due to the fact that when you've already been sat there for an hour, bored witless, your capacity for boredom plummets).
I think it may be time to go back to the Hollywood blockbuster - Ratatouille, anyone?
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