position: absolute - Design resources and inspiration.

Graphic design has some amazing history to look back on. Eric Carl has scanned in a mid-70’s edition of the book World of Logotypes and put it in a Flickr photoset. Lots of beautiful logos, I really love the geometric precision in play, and all examples work perfectly with no color at all. These are really strong. Seeing this, I think we’re in kind of a sad state with all the companies running after the shiny web2.0 trend. But not all hope is lost, aclevercookie has a good collection of current logo redesigns, some of which are definitely good (and some bad). So, what do you think?

keming. noun. The result of improper kerning.
By Ironic Sans and available as a t-shirt.

That’s a long title for such a simple thing. Left Logic has the last HTML Entity Character Lookup you’ll ever need. No more scrolling through entity lists looking for a tiny bit of code just to type a simple character. Search for entity characters based on how they look. So if you need some sort of dash, type a regular minus sign and you’ll get everything that even slightly looks like it. Need something that resembles a P? Good, type a p and you’re set (see screenshot above). It’s fast, and couldn’t be more intuitive. Available also as a OS X dashboard widget, Firefox extension and search plugin.
(Thanks for the tip, Jochen)

I thought this would be interesting for readers in the Cologne, Germany area. The Helvetica documentary will be showing at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne (Google Maps), on September 4th, at 19:00. Aside from the film, there will be a panel discussion with Lars Müller, a Q&A with director Gary Hustwit, and a rooftop after-party.

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. I am definitely going, so let me know if you’ll be there.

For all you typophiles out there, here’s a lovely little collaborative project. Get your daily typography fix on This Day in Type, a “designer generated” calender where every day is presented with a different typographic twist. Designers are invited to submit their own creations for a date of their choice. Since there are often numerous submissions per day, public voting decides which work will become part of the the calender. I like!

It appears that both Mac and PC TrueType versions of Erik Spiekermann’s FF Meta Book and FF Meta Bold are being freely delivered along with the official Second Life client. The fonts’ .ttf files can be copied and used without system restrictions.

This begs the question whether the font was intended for free distribution among currently 4,598,897 users* or if this was a major oversight. A single cut is currently priced at around 50€ (FontShop).
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Jarratt Moody has put together a nice little experiment in typography.
“Say What Again” merges the audio of a scene in the movie “Pulp Fiction” with rapidly animated words, capturing the momentum of the scene perfectly and giving it a little extra kick. Contains profanity, for those concerned.

(YouTube direct link)
Here’s another take on the scene.

Taylor Lane merges typography with pin-up art in his calender series “Studio Pin-Ups“, and takes home an Epica Award while he’s at it. Every month, a new young lady is presented with a selected font and named accordingly, e.g. Miss Bodoni, Miss Gill, Miss Optima, etc. Oh, and depending on your employer, this might or might not be quite safe for work.

Here’s another update on the Helvetica film. Helvetica is set to premier at this year’s SXSW in Austin, Texas, on March 13th. Director Gary Hustwit will be there along with some of the designers featured in the film. Check back on the screenings page to see if it’ll be screening in a theater near you.

Typies offers us some good tips on which typefaces to choose for body text to assure maximum legibility while looking good. The article is split up into 15 quick and concise points. Unless you’re already a typo-pro this is an insightful read.