typography

Lucida Sky with Diamonds. Bauhaus (in the Middle of Our Street). Rock the Caslon. I Wanna Bold Your Sans. Nope, this isn't the set list from designer/rock star Chip Kidd's latest Artbreak gig, they're fontsongs, a Twitter thread (#fontsongs) that challenges pun-loving design types to insert typeface names into popular song titles. Call it Textual Healing. The typographical phenomenon is going strong with recent gems such as Goudy My Dreams, Get into my Car and Garamond (My Wayward Son), but don't delay in tweeting a fontsong of your own today, before the trend changes cultural course. One Twitter user is advocating a switch to fontfilms. First on the list? Back to the Futura.

Finally, we finish off this writer's day in Chicago and, fortunately, no longer talking about museums. Though we aren't really, truly ending in Chicago, but more of Chicago-by-way-of-the-UK, with some interesting information about famed designer Neville Brody and Research Studio's typography work on the upcoming Chicago-based-gangster film Public Enemies. Brody and his crew came up with all of the type treatments used throughout the film and its marketing, creating a font named "New Deal" which the firm explains was commissioned straight from the film's director, Michael Mann:

'It was a fairly loose brief to evoke the era of the 1930s, with streamlined shapes of cars and trains, and the architecture of the period,' says the spokesman.

Monday's Wall Street Journal shout-out to the typographical albatross that is Comic Sans (audience shudders) sent us straight to the UnBeige office copy of Chip Kidd's latest book, Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan (Pantheon), in which our intrepid graphic designing hero—with trusty sidekicks Geoff Spear and Saul Ferris—rescues original Japanese Batman comics from the jaws of obscurity. Assembling the book posed a number of challenges, not the least of which was rounding up as many of the elusive Jiro Kuwata-drawn comics as humanly possible and having them translated to English. Then came designing it. Kidd preserved the original right-to-left orientation, so one begins reading at the back, which is really the front. But how to handle the lettering of the speech balloons? "As a fan I have an extreme aversion to computer fonts that mimic comics' hand lettering," writes Kidd in the book's production notes. "To me they are merely the typographical equivalent of bad toupees."

And so Kidd brazenly chose baldness, going "as unapologetically typeset as possible" with a certain utilitarian sans-serif machine font that hits Batman where he lives. That's right: Gotham. "I think it provides an effectively sober contrast to the often chaotic goings-on," notes Kidd. Meanwhile, all of the sound effects were kept in hand-lettered Japanese, after an early experiment in translating them made the panels look too busy. "If you think it says 'POW' or 'CRASH' or 'BOOM,' then trust us, it does." Click "continued" for a few more images from the book.

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(Photos: Veer)

We find Comic Sans terribly depressing, but is there change afoot in the status of this typographical albatross? Signs of backlash to the graphic design community's longstanding Comic Sans backlash are evident in Veer's new Comic Sans Love t-shirt (pictured above). Created "to convey the mixed emotions Comic Sans evokes," the shirt features a detailed drawing of the human heart—"ventricles, valves, and veins"—comprised of letters set in various sizes of Comic Sans on a "snug-fitting" American Apparel t-shirt. Veer's pumping irony will set you back $22, a small price to pay to tell the world (or your Valentine) that you heart Comic Sans—even if you hate it.

If you're like us, you find your cell phone's immutable display typeface blocky and depressing. Maybe it's time to move to England! There you can avail yourself of FlipFont, a new service that offers downloadable, mobile-optimized fonts to replace the factory-installed default that kills your design mojo. Developed by Monotype Imaging (the company behind fonts.com, among other font-related offerings), FlipFont is currently available only on select cell phones serviced by Vodafone UK, but the goal is to expand the service to operating systems and service providers worldwide.

"Users have tried to change their phone font and have 'broken' their phone in the process, so we've collaborated with Vodafone UK to ensure FlipFont is safe, fun, and easy to use," said Monotype Imaging marketing director Julie Strawson in a press release issued today. The service launches with a menu of ten scalable fonts, ranging from Dennis Pasternak's ITC Stylus (based on freehand architectural lettering) to the robust Musclehead. Prices start at £1.99 (about $3.19 at current exchange rates) per font. For those inclined to typographical restlessness, FlipFont includes a utility that allows customers to 'flip' to use a different font, or access additional fonts that can be previewed, licensed, and downloaded. AT&T, jump on this!

Twenty-six miles. Twenty-six letters. Coincidence? Type Directors Club president Charlie Nix thinks not, and so when he decided to run this year's New York City Marathon (his fourth) to raise money for design scholarships, it was just a matter of going from A to Z. Nix, a partner in the publishing firm Scott & Nix who has taught design and typography for over 15 years, is seeking marathon sponsorships by the letter. Donors at various levels can "buy" uppercase and/or lowercase letter(s).

Writer, curator, and graphic designer Ellen Lupton is on board, throwing her support behind Nix and the uppercase and lowercase "L," and typographer Gary Munch has invested in both cases of the letter "R." Munch and Jakob Trollback are among Nix's "Hot Metal" level supporters; having pledged $104 or more, they'll get special recognition with the coveted Ampersand Award. Meanwhile, we're about to donate on behalf of UnBeige, as the letter "U" is proving unpopular. So far, Nix has raised a total of $2,553 for TDC scholarships. You have until race day (November 2) to be the generous type. Click here to donate.

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.

"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.

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.

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:

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.

As 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."

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.)