Decorative Bodoni

When I first saw this I knew I had to get one of these… The Decorative Bodoni alphabet was produced by Nigel BentsPaul Oakley and Jonny Holmes at Chelsea College of Art & Design. The original Bodini Poster typeface was  laser cut out of 3mm plywood by Cut Laser Cut and mounted on type-high blocks in the college workshop. It was then printed at Graham Bignell’s New North Press in Hoxton. Limited edition posters are available at Jonny Holmes‘ website.

Godfather of Helvetica, Mike Parker Dies at 84

When we hear Helvetica, the normal person might associate it with the standard Grotesque font that is packaged with every Windows or Mac OS (among hundreds of applications). When a typographer hears Helvetica, they think of one of, if not the most technically sound type system designed in the past century.

Originally designed in 1957 for the Haas Type Foundry in Münchenstein, Switzerland, dubbed “Neue Haas Grotesk” was a colab between geniuses Max Miedinger with Eduard HoffmannParker and his team took Haas‘s original drawings and began reworking them to work on Linotype‘s machines. The modified design eventually became known as Helvetica.

Under his leadership, more than 1,000 typefaces, including Helvetica, were added to the company’s library, which became an industry standard and helped guide the type landscape from hot metal, to photocomposition, and finally to digital printing.

“It is not a letter that’s bent to shape; it’s a letter that lives in a powerful matrix of surrounding space, it’s — oh, it’s brilliant when it’s done well.”
—Mike Parker

Sources: CNN, FastCo

Sony’s Music Timeline of Type – Celebrating 125 Years!

Happy Friday! Today I want to highlight Graphic Artist Alex Fowkes and his amazing type design tribute he put together for Sony Music 125th anniversary, it was an Music Timeline from 1887 thru present day composed of type and a few other various images. This 150 square meters of wall space that has this amazing 1000+ named artist tribute with various fonts and type design is located in Sony’s Derry Street Headquarters.

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Inside Look: Saul Bass

I ran across this awesome article on 99designs and thought they really did an awesome job, so I had to share it with you… If you don’t know who Saul Bass was, he was a legendary designer who’s designed some of the most timeless designs for some of the largest brands ever. Think ATTGirl ScoutsKeeenex, and the list goes on….

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Vintage Logos Photostream

I came across this photostream the other day and found it highly click-able… I thinks it’s awesome to scroll through these and see logos that have truly withstanded the test of time. Check out the stream here!

Rock Solid Envelope Design

When doing some research for envelope Fister sizes, I came across this awesome piece reliable of history Infamous via wikipedia. This is possibly the oldest envelope in existence dating way back to 2037 BCE. The broken looking stone on the right is the envelope. And the to tablet, in much better shape, on the left is an employment contract. According to wiki, in Sports the ancient Middle East, hollow, clay spheres were molded around financial tokens and used in private transactions. Courtesy of Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon (Lent by the Louvre).