His Master’s Vice

via that’s right


Makes me smile.

Wood Type: 8 line Rugged

via letterpress daily

The abstract quality of the magenta dimples against the woodgrain is breathtaking. Find more great letters here.

Business Cards: Page XI

[Top Row] Middle card: The deeply embossed wool logo is the perfect solution for this card. Third column: Perfect two color card for Kites, etc. The typography and artwork gives the card a feel of a kite in flight.

[Middle Row] Middle card: Though this card is a sample, it shares the name of a former employer of mine. This card is so 1980s in type and art treatment. And Graphics II in State College will need to be covered in a future post.

[Bottom Row] Third column: Another sample card, clean, crisp, but ultimately a generic design treatment.

Earworm: The Wayouts

Season 6, Episode 11 Summary: 
For his costume for the Water Buffalos’ masquerade party, Fred Flintstone picks a spaceman's uniform. Unfortunately, he goes out on a night when a local radio station has launched a publicity stunt about an invasion by space aliens, a stunt that backfires and creates a panic in the city. This episode is a remake of The Honeymooners episode entitled 'The Man from Space' from Dec. 31, 1955.





Lyrics can be found here.

Paul Octavious’ S6 Minutes: Indigo

via swissmiss
A beautiful experimental short by Paul Octavious


S6 Minutes: Indigo from Paul Octavious on Vimeo.

Earworm: O Fortuna

The original text of "O Fortuna", from the Carmina Burana

O Fortuna is a medieval Latin Goliardic poem written early in the thirteenth century, part of the collection known as the Carmina Burana. It is a complaint about fate, and Fortuna, a goddess in Roman mythology and personification of luck.

The misheard lyrics here make me smile. You can find out more about O Fortuna here, including the actual lyrics and translation.

Alas, Julia Child & Jacques Pepin

Queen Victoria’s Ten Ingredients

Queen Victoria favors ten ingredients: almond, lemon peel, liquorice, juniper berries, orris root, angelica, coriander, cassia, cubeb, and grains of paradise.

Chromatic: The Crossroads Between Color and Music

via COLOURlovers.com

“At nearly 400 pages of full-color artwork and editorial, Chromatic: The Crossroads of Color and Music, is a dynamic print presentation of independent musicians and artists who are using or exploring color in unorthodox ways. . . ”

Read the rest here, visit the Alarm Press page here.

Image of the Day: Desktop Amersands

I’m pleased that I captured the soft glow reflection of the small metal ampersand on my desk, and the barely-able-to-be-seen ghost of a French Curve.

Typography Deconstructed Letterpress Poster

via creativepro

“The Typography Deconstructed letterpress poster is the result of several months of research both on the subjects of the Anatomy of Type and Type Glossary. Inspired by the craft of letterpress printing and a love for typography, Typography Deconstructed aims at providing a resource for educating those interested in what makes type… well, type. Each poster has a comprehensive list of typographical terms with each term being represented by the anatomy of the letter that best describes it visually.”

Read the rest here, and visit the Type Deconstructed site here to learn more about the anatomy of type and their type glossary.

The Daft Punk / Coke Connection

via creativity

“Coke is taking its inspiration from French synthpop act Daft Punk with these new limited edition bottles designed to mimic the helmets worn by the duo. From next month, the gold and silver bottles will be released at clubs and will also be packaged in a collector's box as a set, made available exclusively through Colette in Paris. A website, at Daftcoke.com, will also go live.”

Business Cards: Page X

[Top row] Nice color choice and handlettering for VIPPS card on a grey stock. The embossed “One” is done well, Wow, the next card, is hard to sum up—the salmon glow is intriguing. The card is embossed, but not very deep, with Fickle Enterprises California. Fickle Enterprises? Fickle Enterprises? Characterized by erratic changeableness or instability? “[In my head I hear the printer saying, “Sir, are you SURE you really want your business named that?”] Finally, why is there such a large space bewteen the capital S and the rest of the letters in Sawyers? And why is the state that is embossed say California, but on the card the address is Oregon?

[Middle row] Michael Fedorko was fellow student from AIP; I really liked the serif lettering arrangement of the last name. Tie One On has a cute name, but I guess the printer wasn’t able to center Avis Johnson’s name on the card — things like that just drive me a little crazy.

[Bottom row] Penn’s Farms card— very nice utilization of two colors on a white stock.

Houdini’s letterhead, 1920

via John Foster’s Accidental Mysteries.
Learn more about the letterhead here.

Gabriel Dawe Thread Installations

via COLOURlovers.com

“Using over 50 miles of string, Gabriel creates dramatic, almost other-worldly installations. . . ” I had previously had this posted on my older version of my blog, and when I saw it pop-up again on ColourLovers, I wanted to post it again.

Read the rest of this post here, explore more of his work here.

Revisiting “The Lottery”

via utne reader

“The cautionary tale of conformity in Shirley Jackson’s controversial short story is as relevant today as it was in 1948 . . . ”

Read the rest of the post here, and the short story here.

Earworm: Kashmir

Bond, an all-girl Australian/British classical crossover string quartet covers this song on their album Shine. Listen to their version here. Led Zeppelin’s 1975 version here. The riff has always reminded me of katydids on a warm summer evening singing to each other.

Geek A Week Trading Cards

via cnn

“Move over, baseball. The coolest new trading cards feature a Geek a Week. For the last 52 weeks, artist Len Peralta has been interviewing one geek hero a week, posting podcasts of his discussions online and designing the front and back of a trading card. (Comedic music duo Paul and Storm write the descriptions.) This week, nerdy retailer ThinkGeek debuts physical, collectible Geek a Week cards. The first installment features the first eight geeks in Peralta’s project.”

Read the rest here, purchase the cards here.

Business Cards: Page IX

[Top Row] Becky Ballato’s card—Love the idea of the free flowing shape of the two letter B’s and brush, hate the type treatment and font choice. The Cat’s Meow was a local florist that had a great shop to discover wonderful surprises in every nook and cranny of their location, but the downturn in the economy took its toll on them.

[Middle Row] Love the red shoes and use of negative space, hate the typeface and treatment. Bert Gries was probably my favorite teacher while I was a student at AIP. My class projects were just average, but he really made the process of package design inspiring. He also had one of the best classroom locations in the building; second floor looking out onto Penn Avenue. Joe Petrina was one of the best design students and classmates at AIP; he seemed to work so effortlessly and ideas just seemed to flow for him. If I remember correctly, he also had a great laugh.

[Bottom Row] A classic Mac in silver foil on black stock; this card just rocks. Ahh, Accu-Weather—I do not think I have every heard anything good about how graphic designers were treated when employed by them under a very confining contract. While at Graphics II, we did a bit of work from them, including cleaning up the [ugly] logo concept that was created by the owner’s mother. I think that billing issues eventually led to them leaving our fold of clients. AquaPenn’s card—nice blind embossing, the “non-photo” blue ink is just a tad too light for my liking.

As the Crow Flies Moving Announcement

via FPO

A smart die-cut chip board project that makes me smile. Fuszion’s office was moving five blocks down the street and needed a moving announcement that would stand out.

Read about this project and see more image here.