Typography
On April 1st, 1977 The Guardian published a seven page “special report” about San Serriffe, a small republic in the Indian Ocean. The report included detailed facts about the geography, culture and economy of this hitherto unknown land. The newspaper received hundreds of requests from readers seeking further information. However, the island never existed and the report was one of the first April Fool’s Day hoaxes by a national newspaper in Britain.
San Serriffe probably didn’t fool any designers at the time as everything about the place referenced typographic terms. The two main islands, Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse looked like a semi-colon, the capital was Bodoni and the dictator’s name was General Pica!
The most impressive part was that major advertisers played along with the joke – Guinness, Texaco, Kodak and Vladivar Vodka all ran special advertisements, construction company Costain’s ad read “Costain is changing the face of San Serriffe” - geddit?. Read more about San Serriffe at Hoaxipedia
David Rainbird
Posted on Sunday, 30th of March 2008 Permalink
Santa’s sleigh must have hit a highway sign on the way to my house this year – I’m now the proud owner of two vintage highway letters. The holes are for reflectors and the X is missing a few but I like it better for that. The typeface Highway Gothic is being phased out by the Federal Highway Administration and replaced with the more legible Clearview. Replacing all the signs across the States will take ten years so hopefully there will be more vintage letters becoming available.
David Rainbird
Posted on Friday, 11th of January 2008 Permalink
The perfect Christmas gift for any budding typographer this year has to be this lovely Font Clock by Sebastian Wrong (for Established & Sons) incorporating 12 different fonts. The only problem is you’ll have to put a few more hours in to afford one.
Nathan Usmar Lauder
Posted on Monday, 26th of November 2007 Permalink
Stella Artois has just re-launched their site with a delicious piece of typographic film inspired by 1920’s poster typography. Artois has produced a flurry of great work lately (see here, here) and the animation is as striking and witty as any of their print ads. The film works as a tour around the site that brings together existing and new content including all the commercials. Link
David Rainbird
Posted on Tuesday, 9th of October 2007 Permalink
This Saturday saw me staying in for the first time in a ages mind you staying in is the new going out. Whilst watching the rubbish we pay for I’ve come to the conclusion that TV programme intos aren’t what they used to be. I spent time reflecting on some of the rich visual stuff I was exposed to when a kid watching Saturday TV. Just check out some of the logos above, absolutely amazing! In stark contrast to the depressing display today, XFactor and Strictly Come Dancing to name a few poor examples, yuk! - Note some of these also had killer soundtracks.
Vikesh Bhatt
Posted on Tuesday, 2nd of October 2007 Permalink
This poster designed by Joseph Luffman, produced by the international type academy (ITA) in support of British Food Fortnight is just one of the lovely things you can see and buy at Blanka, a site devoted to celebrating the very best in creative communication and print.
Dave Brown
Posted on Tuesday, 18th of September 2007 Permalink
˙looɔ ʎʇʇǝɹd sɐʍ ʇı ʇɥƃnoɥʇ ı ʇnq ǝuoʎuɐ oʇ sı sıɥʇ ǝsn ʇɐɥʍ ǝuıƃɐɯı ʇ,uɐɔ. Link
Gary Butcher
Posted on Monday, 16th of July 2007 Permalink
...can be very rewarding sometimes, a German student named Lisa Rienermann looked up in Barcelona and found letterforms in the sky created by the negative space of buildings. The projects called ‘Type the Sky’ link (via Slanted)
Dave Brown
Posted on Thursday, 12th of July 2007 Permalink
Tauba Auerbach’s work is as beautiful as it is clever. Above are The Answer/Wasn’t Here (Anagram III) and LISTEN/SILENT (Anagram III). Her site (developed with Matt Clark of Houston) is worth a visit for the mysterious op art pattern interface alone. Link
David Rainbird
Posted on Friday, 29th of June 2007 Permalink
This Day In Type is a collaborative calendar, where typophiles submit artworks that use the date as it’s subject. It’s a mixed bag as you would expect, but as you can see today is a particularly nice day in type, thanks to Eric Hague. I’d like This Day In Type as a screensaver. (Thanks Ben!)
David Rainbird
Posted on Tuesday, 26th of June 2007 Permalink
