UnBeige logo design by 
Niels Shoe Meulman, as part of our regular <i>design our logo</i> feature
UnBeige logo by Niels Shoe Meulman, as part of our regular design our logo feature

Receive mediabistro.com's Daily UnBeige Feed via email
Freshbooks


Daily Media Newsfeed Click here to receive mediabistro.com's Daily Media Newsfeed via email.

typography

Friday Oct 10, 2008

Name Game: Honorable Mentions

You've seen the grand prize winners of the inaugural UnBeige Name Game (in which we challenged you to name a dog, a band, and a child after commercially available typefaces), but we also wanted to share with you the outstanding entries that we've deemed worthy of honorable mentions in each of the three categories.

dog HM.jpg

"I always wanted to name a dog Barcelona," wrote Jennifer Uner, who plans events for GOOD. "Yell it across the room for full effect." (Or sing it like Freddie Mercury.) Graphic designer Craig Patterson picked Poor Richard, a perfect fit for this sad-eyed black lab or any canine with a taste for almanacs.

band HM.jpg

Typeface names seem to lend themselves to musical monikers, making it particularly difficult to choose our winners, but we couldn't resist Alicia Feliz's creative combination of Mister Chuckles (the jubilant, Deco-flavored typeface by Nick Curtis) and Zipper into what sounds like a promising Ska act: Mister Chuckles and the Zippers. Craig Bower, creative director at Ignite Digital, kept it short and sweet with his idea for a band called Swister, after the typeface designed by Chank Diesel and Alison Olmack.

child HMb.jpg

In selecting the honorable mentions for typeface-inspired children's names, our unabashed Francophilia won the day. Ami Dalal nominated the jaunty Garamouche, Garamond's drunken cousin, while Joe Greco suggested naming the little one Anisette, the licorice-flavored typeface that tweaks the Art Deco capitals in A.M. Cassandre's posters. "Before our first child was born, my wife and I would go back and forth on names," wrote Greco, the corporate design director at GateHouse Media. "She bought two books that had a total of some 70,000 names with the hope that somewhere within those pages was the name of our first born...and second born. We decided on Dylan and Matthew, but who would have thought that to find a cool baby name, all we had to do was open a font book?"

Finally, winning major points for parsimony was Danu Widatama, who picked the multifunctional Georgia for naming a dog, band, and child. Explained Widatama, "It's simple and stylish."

Previously on UnBeige:

  • Name Game Winner #1: Renata Mupy
  • Name Game Winner #2: Dean Meyers
  • Name Game Winner #3: Jami Drost

  • In a World...Torn Apart by Typefaces

    Continuing with our typography theme on this fall Friday, we thought we'd call your attention to the below video gem from our friends at I Love Typography, who helped to make our UnBeige Name Game a smashing success. It's a clever promotion for the font manager Suitcase Fusion 2 in the form of a trailer for Bravefont, which stars some characters [rim shot] that we're sure you'll recognize. And it's so nice to see Dom Casual working again.


    Thursday Oct 02, 2008

    Ricky Gervais: 'People Don't Watch Films That Have the Wrong Font'

    ricky gervais.jpgAs if we needed another reason to adore comedian Ricky Gervais, the co-creator of the original UK version of The Office and possible host of next year's Oscars, a profile in the current issue of Entertainment Weekly (but not available online) reveals his appreciation for the power of design. In a sidebar focused on "Five splashy projects that Ricky Gervais says he turned down," the ur-David Brent explains his rationale for passing on the starring role in a remake of Arthur, the 1981 starring Dudley Moore as "the most quotable drunk millionaire that is likely to ever steal your heart."

    "I said no straightaway," says Gervais. "Why would I mess with a perfect comedy? They know people don't watch films that have the wrong font—it's got an '80s font."
    The other four movie offers he turned down (for non-typographical reasons)? The Da Vinci Code, Star Trek, Magnum P.I., and Pirates of the Caribbean 2, the latter because, "I didn't want to sit in a Winnebago for six months waiting to show up as a comedy pirate for two minutes."

    Tuesday Aug 12, 2008

    In Olympic Opening Ceremonies, Small Victory for Futura Bold Italic

    Sure, there were the 15,000 performers, including 2,008 drummers in "Fou Formation," glowing fairies, and adorable children singing at that pitch that renders any song both eerie and heartbreaking. There was the gigantic glowing globe that took a year to design and construct and was a dead ringer for the AT&T logo. There were miles of LEDs, constant pyrotechnical flourishes, and a performance of movable type printing that would have given Gutenberg a heart attack, all set against a spirited battle of Claritin vs. Zyrtec that raged during commercial breaks. But amidst all of the excitement of last Friday's Olympic opening ceremony, we zeroed in on the sole appearance of English text as it flashed on the massive screen that welcomed the world to Beijing.

    The fateful moment came during the post-countdown part of the ceremony, when the Confucius-inspired welcome greeting appeared first in Chinese, then in English, and then in both languages. What typeface made the cut? Futura Bold Italic, of course. We struggled to find a decent video of the scene, but the below amateur one will give you a flavor. Look sharp around 3:25, right before they cut away to a shot of Barbara Kruger grinning. (OK, maybe we imagined that last part. Pass the Claritin.)

    Friday Jul 18, 2008

    design mind Has Got Erik Spiekermann's Number(s)

    spiekermann.jpgOur friends at frog design have unveiled a new website for their boundary-pushing publication, design mind, along with a new print edition of the magazine. The latest issue (the eighth so far) is entitled "numbers," and so revolves loosely around digits. Especially noteworthy is this issue is Chelsea Holden Baker's chat with designer Erik Spiekermann (pictured at left), who discusses the three-dimensional typographic challenge he took on when commissioned to create sets of house numbers for Design within Reach. While numbers are tough, Spiekerman says that he can't bear to delegate their design to others. "They're just too pretty."

    But most people do not design numbers because numbers are hard. As you can see on the street, most numbers are standardized. They tend to be very generic because people are scared of numbers; redesigning numbers is like redesigning the Latin alphabet. The way we write our numbers comes from Arabic, although they've been abstracted. The three used to slant down, like a 2 or something. You see this angle in Arabic, with the stresses on the bottom. Our normal numbers—real, legible numbers—are a little bit clunky, because they're tall but narrow. They have weird diagonals. It's a nightmare.

    Friday Jun 27, 2008

    The Growing 'A Unique Font for Every Project' Movement

    0627customfonts.jpg

    Peter Wayner has picked up on the trend of the world seemingly now needing a constant stream of new type in his piece "Down with Helvetica: Design Your Own Font." It's about the desire to move away from the fonts everyone has access to and hiring out to create a unique design for each project. In the piece, they get into conversations with a number of different designers like Charles Andermack and about companies like FontStruct, as well as talking to these client people who are now thinking along these lines and are providing the bread and butter for the aforementioned designers and companies. Here's a bit how Andermack (or Chank Diesel as you may know him) offers an inexpensive custom handwriting font service to people and then turns it around to sell as something new:

    Mr. Andermack asks clients to copy a collection of words in their handwriting, then scans the letters into his computer and produces a font. The only catch is that Mr. Andermack keeps the rights to resell the font to others. He publishes a collection of distinctive handwriting fonts to ad directors who want to capture a particular style or era. Your handwriting could end up in the next bundle. Exclusive rights cost more.

    Monday May 05, 2008

    Snow Job: Chank Designs Typeface at Sub-Zero Temperatures

    nomak.jpg

    Minnesotans in winter are a resourceful (if shivering) bunch, and type designer Chank Diesel is no exception. In February, the founder of Minneapolis-based type house Chank Company recruited groups of Minnesota State University graphic design students for an outdoor type design workshop -- on a Sunday in Mankato when the temperature dipped as low as -5°F, give or take the occasional 20 mph windburst. "I figured since they were crazy enough to choose to live in Mankato in February in the first place, they'd be cool with going out in the subzero cold to draw fonts on the sidewalk," Diesel tells us. "I was right. They were fearless and we had a lot of fun." Chank recorded the fun and fearlessness in the below video.

    "I was ready to go out in the parking lot scratching the alphabets on windshields," says Diesel. "But luckily we got a fresh coating of snow that morning to make the sidewalks the perfect canvas." On that canvas, Chank and the students created NoMak, which he describes as "a hand-tooled, calligraphic grunge logofont from the future." Transforming the collection of arcs and straight lines into a geometric sans-serif typeface was no walk in the snow, however, and Diesel is now working on a cleaner, all-geometric version. For now, there's NoMak, available as a free download on the Chank website. Says Diesel, "It's what I imagine to be the last-gasp, death-scrawl, of the last robot on earth trapped in an ice cave in Antarctica in the distant future. Just before his battery runs out."

    Tuesday Apr 29, 2008

    Calligraphy Explored...

    topper2.jpg

    We stumbledupon.com this web site, started by expert calligrapher, Michael Sull, who has mastered the nearly lost art of Spencerian script, which was developed after 1840, flourished throughout the U.S. almost to the turn of the 20th century, and then virtually disappeared, replaced by the Palmer Method. There's been a renewed interest in this particular type of calligraphy, mainly for its Victorian flair and romantic look. If you're so inclined, Sull offers special workshops on the topic in the fall.

    Tuesday Feb 26, 2008

    Hoefler & Frere-Jones Weigh In Directly On Campaign Typography

    0226campaigntype2.jpg

    A little while back, we linked up a bonus clip from Helvetica that Gary Hustwit had put up on the film's blog, featuring Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones talking about Gotham, the famous font they created that is now being used by Obama for his campaign. Our friends over at Design Observer caught a nice follow-up to that post with a recent entry over on Hoefler and Frere-Jones' own site, talking directly about what they think of the current campaign type. It's brief, but, as to be expected, it's pretty interesting. Here's a bit:

    A journalist recently asked what it is about Gotham that we think suits the Obama campaign. We'll defer to designers John Slabyk and Scott Thomas to make that call -- they selected the font for Obama for America, we merely provided it -- but one thing we can say as type designers is that Gotham isn't pretending to be anything it's not, which makes it an unusual and refreshing choice for a campaign.

    Wednesday Feb 20, 2008

    Hoefler and Frere-Jones on Gotham, Obama's Font of Choice

    0220obamafont.jpg

    Because this writer can't get enough Obama and will shamelessly use this blog to shameless share his politics, we turn to Mr. "I Made Typography Cool Again" Gary Hustwit and his most recent post, "A Font We Can Believe In." In it, he shares a bit about Obama using Gotham as his default "change" font and then goes on to share a bonus clip from his film Helvetica, left out of the original but available on the new DVD, talking to Hoefler and Frere-Jones about how they created Gotham, originally for GQ magazine. Here's a bit:

    Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones spoke about the creation of Gotham during our interview for Helvetica, and looking back at their description of what GQ wanted from the font, it sounds surprisingly Obama-esque. "GQ had a dual agenda of wanting something that would look very fresh, yet very established, to have a credible voice to it," says Hoefler. It also needed to look very masculine and "of-the-moment." Mission accomplished.


    Previously

    Judging the Candidates' on Their Type Choices: Obama Wins Again

    Bierut On Modern Typesetting For Designers: Like Having "As Much Sex As They Wanted"

    Banking on Call-Outs and Pull-Quotes

    Get Carter: Pentagram's 2008 Calendar Features Matthew Carter's Typefaces

    Please Tell Us That Diesel Has a Sense of Humor

    Test Your Knowledge of Fonts, Jeopardy-Style

    Wheel of Type

    Comic Sans, the Drunk Bastard Left-for-Dead Child of Helvetica. No, Really.

    The Mighty Hands of Bernard Maisner

    Apparently We're Also Marrying Phil Patton

    For Freeway Signage and For Design Coverage, Finally a Clearview

    Rob Giampietro Is Summer Lovin' Grouch

    Vinh and Coles Talk FontBook

    Newsweek Copy Editors Invent New Typeface

    The Best of '06 from the Business of Type

    Helvetica Declared a Cult, If So, We're In

    The Faces of Businesses

    Helvetica Endorsed As "Top-Selling" Typeface By BusinessWeek

    The Helvetica of Mexico

    Type Directors Club Award Winners (Panel Worries About What Typeface to Use for the Certificate)

    The Trouble with Gill

    Helvetica Coming Soon To a Theater Near You

    Alternatives to Ol' Helv

    Amy Papaelias Handwrites Her Way Into Our Hearts

    Thoughts on Rimmer and All He Stands For

    A Rose is a Rose, and Type is Type

    Typecast: The Director's Cut

    One Gotham That's Not Rough Around the Edges

    Types of Perception of Type

    Figuring Out What Makes Bollywood Bollywood

    Ideas on a Full Year of Type

    Your Best Bets for Type in '06

    Things Are a Bit Crooked at 10 Downing Street

    The Times They Are A Changing Because of Neville Brody and Company

    Type, All Up In Our Face

    Taking the Type from Your Streets

    Helv Yeah!

    Mind the Type

    Requiem For a Mistral

    The Face That Launched A Thousand...Um...Signs

    More Cooper, and It's Super

    Scandalous Cooper Black

    Wrangling In The Managers, One Typeface At A Time

    The Type of Typefaces In Blueprint

    Likely The Best Part of the Whole Program

    It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst FOR Times

    The Letterpressed Writing Was On The Wall All Along

    Emphasis Would Be Lost Without Him

    The Grandest Hoax of All Time (or of this week)

    The Typographer's Biography

    Typecast Takes Top Honors

    jlkdasjiodwa (We Suppose This Only Works If You Do It Correctly)

    Thank You For Stephen Coles

    Be A Design Group Plays Gill Sans Island

    Do Designers Dream of Helvetica, Bold?

    For the Love of Goudy

    Typographer Laureate, Rod McDonald

    Pride Yourself on Your Leading!

    Of All Shapes and Kernings

    Straight from The Cheese Monkeys

    Handmade Typography's Got A Little Something To It

    Wait, It's NOT Helvetica???

    Fie, Helvetica, Fie

    The Alphabet, Now In New Moving Gifs

    You Want Our Words To Be A Little More Stylish? So Do We

    Cheap Fonts

    Just In Case You Wake Up Bored Of Times New Roman, Boy Have We Got News For You

    So, Uh, You Like Type? OMG, Me Too!!!

    Fonts Fonts Fonts

    TypeCon is Coming!

    Awkwardly Designed Cards for Awkward Moments

    Name That Font

    Download or Die (well, not really)

    Typogra-funny (ouch)

    Did you say FREE??

    Now You Know: @

    You Got Faced!

    New From House Industries: Paperback

    A Bit of Tibor for You

    Ooh! Ooh! Typography Picking!

    Quayle is to Kennedy as Arial is to Helvetica

    On Fonts, In Good Company

    More On Blackletter: A Reader Responds

    Blackletter: Nazi Hip Typeface

    Font Essentials

    Absolute: Fabulous

    Typographic Amateur Hour

    The Retail Alphabet Game

    Speaking of Flickr: I Adore This

    Gawker Gets a Facelift

    Time-Wasting Typographic Fun

    Barbara Who?

    Designer Series Video Interviews

    Fab Font Round Up from Typographica

    Font-astic

    Font-astic (the Sequel continues)

    Font-astic (the Sequel)

    em-dash is the new comma

    You Write (So I Don't Have To)

    Crimes Against Typography Continue

    Read more on UnBeige >

    Interested in advertising on UnBeige?

    Our Blog Network

    AgencySpy

    GalleyCat

    PRNewser

    TVNewser

    MobileContentToday

    MobileMarketingToday

    MobileDevicesToday

    MobileAppsToday

    FishbowlNY

    FishbowlDC

    FishbowlLA

    UnBeige

    UnBeige: A Blog About Design

    Editors:
    Steve Delahoyde
    Stephanie Murg
    About Us
    Syndication
    RSS feed
    → Check out UnBeige in The New York Times!

      UnBeige twitter feed loading...

    View twitter directly

    Follow UnBeige via Twitter

    Anonymous Tips



    Forum

    Designers' Corner 30 topics
    Beware-TrailBalzer magazine! (6) 10/13/2008
    Editing through PDF? (9) 10/12/2008
    Cartoonist Wanted (3) 9/26/2008
    more... - post new topic

    Links

    Sites of Interest

    A Brief Message

    Adaptive Path

    Adrants

    Ads of the World

    Airbag Industries

    A List Apart

    Andy Rutledge

    Apartment Therapy

    Archinect

    ArchNewsNow

    Be A Design Group

    BLDGBLOG

    Bluelines

    Boxes and Arrows

    Core77

    Cool Hunting

    Coudal

    Creative Bits

    CRIT

    The Curated Object

    Curbed

    Daily Heller

    Design Addict

    Designboom

    Design Is Kinky

    Design Matters

    Design Observer

    DesignSessions

    design*sponge

    Design Your Life

    Design Writing Research

    The Designers' Lunchbox

    Dexinger

    Good Experience

    Graphic Design Forum

    Graphics.com

    ideasonideas

    IDFuel

    Inhabitat

    Jason Kottke

    Land+Living

    Liquid Treat

    LVHRD

    MoCoLoCO

    murketing

    NOTCOT

    Poynter (Design & Graphics)

    Reluct

    Remodelista

    Signal vs. Noise

    Speedbird

    Subtraction

    SwissMiss

    The Moment

    Things Magazine

    Typographica

    Speak Up

    Viewers Like You

    Voice AIGA

    W Editors' Blog


    Magazines

    The Architect's Newspaper

    Architecture Week

    BusinessWeek

    Communication Arts

    Dwell

    Dynamic Graphics

    Eye

    ID

    HOW

    Metropolis

    Ping

    Print

    ReadyMade

    STEP Inside Design

    W

    Categories

    7 Questions

    about

    About Us - Logo Module

    About Us - Modules

    About Us - Subheader Module

    ads/mktg

    AIGA NEXT

    animation

    architecture

    art

    art basel design miami

    aspen design summit

    awards + competitions

    beta

    blogs

    books

    branding + identity

    business

    collaboration

    compostmodern

    conferences

    consume

    contests

    crafty

    dwell on design

    education

    events

    exhibitions

    fashion

    feedback

    field trip

    film + video

    friday photo

    funny

    furniture

    gaming

    general

    graphic design

    HOW 2006

    icff

    ideas

    illustration

    interiors

    jobs

    lexicon

    magazines

    museums

    music

    news

    off topic

    parks + public spaces

    parties

    people

    photo

    popularity contest

    preservation + restoration

    print

    product design

    professional associations

    radical craft

    rumors

    stimulation

    sxsw

    technique

    teevee

    The Revolving Door

    tools

    typography

    urbanity

    web

    y conference

    Archives

    October 2008

    September 2008

    August 2008

    July 2008

    more...

    Recent

    Debating Presidential Debate Set Design

    Michelle Addington on Why Architects Should Stop Thinking Like Architects

    Using Up Your Leftovers, One Sewer's Way

    Subscribe

    Click here to receive the Daily Media News Feed by email.

    Job Listings

    Featured Listings

    Sr. Production Designer
    CNN New York
    New York, NY

    Graphic Arts Sales Representative
    Geodsx
    New York, NY

    Assistant/Receptionist -- TAG
    McCann Worldgroup
    San Francisco, CA

    Senior Graphic Designer
    provide-commerce (ProFlowers, RedEnvelope)
    San Diego, CA

    ADVERTISEMENT


    mediabistro.com l Member Benefits l Jobs l Freelance Marketplace l Courses l Events l Forums l Content
    mediabistro Blogs: Media News l TVNewser l GalleyCat l UnBeige l FishbowlNY l FishbowlLA l FishbowlDC l mbToolbox l PRNewser l AgencySpy l UGCX
    MobileAppsToday l MobileContentToday l MobileMarketingToday l MobileDevicesToday
    Site Map l Advertising/Sponsorships l Partners l About Us l Contact Us/Help

    JupiterOnlineMedia

    internet.comearthweb.comDevx.commediabistro.comGraphics.com

    Search:

    Jupitermedia Corporation has two divisions: Jupiterimages and JupiterOnlineMedia

    Jupitermedia Corporate Info


    Legal Notices, Licensing, Reprints, & Permissions, Privacy Policy.

    Web Hosting | Newsletters | Tech Jobs | Shopping | E-mail Offers