Been meaning to post this for a little while, I think I found it via Design Observer, these simple t-shirts each bearing a sample of a great typeface. I think they’re a nice idea, but I’m a little disappointed that they don’t have designs that reflect the character of each face more, instead opting for name-of-face-in-a-box. Printing restrictions, I assume.

Still, they’re nice, if too small for me. Go and look.

I can’t quite recall why I’ve not blogged this before. For the life of me I can’t recall where I found it (I’ve had it on my hard drive for a while), but it was made by the “United Designers Network - Berlin”, a search for whom redirects to Spiekermann Partners.

Now and again I look at it and marvel how two entirely different types work so well on the same page. Viewed scaled down (below, in positive and negative) you can see that the whole piece has an even colour, and yet a closeup (right) shows that it’s set in Adobe Caslon and Wittenberg Fraktur (OK, I cribbed the name of the blackletter from the original PDF). I’d never have thought the two faces could have the same colour like that. I love it, it’s a really nice bit of inspiration.

UPDATE: I guess I should have had a closer look through the Spiekermann Partners site! Alessandro Segalini mailed me with the blog entry describing the design motivation of the poster, apparently by Erik Spiekermann himself. Excerpt here:

The poster designed itself: the English text is set in Caslon, the typeface that George Bernard Shaw always specified for his writings; the German copy is set in Fraktur, the typeface used for setting German and other northern languages since Gutenberg. If it hadn’t been for the Nazis misusing these faces for their sinister purposes, we would still be reading Fraktur. It is the typeface of Goethe, Martin Luther, Karl Marx and Hegel. And it is perfectly suited to set our long words and interminable sentences, still evoking Gothic cathedrals and narrow streets with timbered houses. The one used is called Wittenberg Fraktur, after the town where Luther nailed his theses on a church door in 1517.

Incidentally, Spiekermann Partners developed the Deutsche Bahn brand system which I’ll no doubt blog about some time in the future.

It’s a bit tempting to create a category called “Stuff you didn’t know needed a name” for this. You know those bits that hold the counters in on type stencils? They’re called Pylons now, apparently.

Actually, I’m surprised they don’t already have a name.

(via Design Observer)

Bit late with this one, “9 cool animations with typography” (actually 12 now). Found via Swissmiss.

I love “The Lion’s Roar” especially the bit in the still I’ve grabbed here (on the left):

(via Chris Glass)

Now this is what I call a character set. Swissmiss pointed me at this incredible new typeface by Alejandro Paul, on Veer. I have a strong urge to buy it just to play at typing things and seeing the ligatures appear. I mean, some of these ligatures are whole words!

This robot has been programmed to write out the entire Martin Luther bible in a calligraphic style on a long roll of paper. I wonder if they’re going to bind the pages up and publish it? What the robot does is a step up from print in reproducing the manuscripts made by monks, which is great, though it doesn’t say (though my German isn’t good enough to read the product page) whether the robot arm applies differential pressure and angle of stroke depending on the previous letters, or how far across the line it is, or how far down the page, like a human being would. If it did, then that would in my mind give the work a magical, delicate quality of something written. I don’t want to get all tedious and mystical about some missing innate human or animistic quality, but I like the idea of a robot arm having to stretch a bit at the edges of the page, altering its stroke weight after a particularly arduous cadel previously, all that kind of stuff. I can imagine a whole series of publications that could be given this ‘hand done’ treatment. We could have special editions of books made by one-time-only robot arms, ones that get tired after a number of copies and can’t be made to write any more, books made by robots with a signature style, with minds of their own. All eventually of course leading to original works created by machines so advanced we have to refer to them as human (or post-human) too…

If you fancy emailing me about this, do go ahead, but read this first!

• I didn’t make this robot, I’m not involved with the team who made it, and what I know about it is written above
• I am well aware that the original version of the Bible being written was printed, but I’m also aware that the Gutenberg Press had features to attempt to replicate human variation in manuscript writing. My comments are a hope for the future of this machine and not a ‘lament’ or a complaint about it.
• Please don’t be unpleasant. I have no idea what is so upsetting to people about this robot, but please don’t send me insults.

Yes, as usual, on Flickr. Ah well, it’s worth looking for the nice type.