Thursday, December 27, 2007

Everyone’s a typographer

Or, at least everyone knows what fonts are.

Since everyone and their brother (or sister) has a computer with Microsoft Word and Print Shop Pro Publisher Deluxe, we’ve all become skilled typographers, right?

Uh, no.

In an effort to educate the general Microsoft Office-using public, The Sacramento Bee offers What’s your type? (<-- This link is to the Printer version of the article, which apparently doesn’t force you to register in order to read the entire piece. You’ll have to click [Cancel] when the print dialog box comes up though.) In any case, give the article a read and get a glimpse of how the general populace views and uses fonts.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Design, Spin, and “Greenwashing”

via e-mail from Roland

Have we gone wrong, design people? The New York Times’ article, Be It Ever So Homespun, There’s Nothing Like Spin muses on the design analog of what Michael Pollan described as “supermarket pastoral”—dressing up industrially-produced certified organic foods with green meadows and happy cows so we can feel good about our food choices. And here I thought we were only supposed to use the power of design for good.

Ignore, for the moment, the debate about the benefits (or not) of Big Organic vs. the accessibility (or not) of Sustainable Agriculture. Instead, check out the There’s Nothing Like Spin article to see how design influences the hearts and minds of supermarket shoppers.

Okay, back to my Natural Cheetos.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Helvetica Soundtrack iMix

For your listening pleasure.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Ugly Colleges

via Daring Fireball

While there’s tons (literally) of construction going on around Cal, I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who thinks the entire campus is ugly. Parts of campus? Definitely (Lower Sproul, anyone?). But the whole campus? No.

It seems like the writer of The 20 Ugliest Colleges in the USA seems to agree—Cal doesn’t appear on the list. The list is arbitrary, so take the selections with a grain of salt. I will, however, endorse the inclusion of selections 5 and 13. I’ve been to both campuses and would have been surprised if they hadn’t made the list.