Canada truly is a cultural mosaic, accepting and actively encouraging the expressions of a multitude of nations. At the beginning of March Canada Type, who has been responsible for reviving many great international typefaces, added another historically important face to their roster with the release of the first digital version of Ronaldson Old Style. Ronaldson was originally designed in metal by Alexander Kay for the MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan foundry of Philadelphia in 1884 and was one of the first great American faces and a very interesting story.
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Friday, February 29, 2008
Join us on Thursday, March 6th, 7:00 p.m. at the Arts & Letters Club, 14 Elm St. to hear Peter Zak & Barry Lavender -Get Some Personality: Branding with Custom Type
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Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Join us Tues. February 26th, 7:00 p.m. at the Arts & Letters Club, 14 Elm St. to hear Karl Thomson of Compass360
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Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Have you ever wondered who would play you in a movie? It’s one of those conversations that pops up from time to time when you’re out with friends and you start talking about books you’ve just read or films you’ve just seen. Well, a recently posted piece at Design Observer has been growing steadily over the past couple of days. Fifteen Minutes of Fame compares photos of famous designers and the actor(s) would likely be the best fit to play them in a film.
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Norwegian Designer Torleiv Sverdrup has added his name to the ranks of the International House of Fonts (IHoF), a division of the P22 Type Foundry in Buffalo, with the release of his first two typefaces, Hoy and Spiggie, named after places in the Orkney Islands. Hoy has a very uncial feel, not dissimilar to Colmcille, though not quite as Art Deco in style. Spiggie is a much more Art Deco style Sans Serif with a Peignot feeling, though it has wider characters and has a clear lowercase with the exception of the cap style “e”. Both would make clean display faces and are a fine addition to the P22 Library.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Not all of the people in this industry are fixated on type and design 24/7, some of them have serious hobbies and alter-egos. Karl Thomson, who is our first Speaker in the upcoming Calendar, is somebody who wears two hats extremely well. Not only is he an extremely talented designer, but he is also a highly accomplished race car driver. I wish I had more time to go into this right now, but I have a class to teach and can only leave you with a teaser and a link. Karl’s crew initially placed 3rd in the qualifying rounds last weekend, but ended up in the top two on technicalities (if I understand this correctly) and their race will be on the Speed Channel tonight at 8:00 p.m. for those of you inclined to watch what professional designers do in their off time. There is more on Karl’s blog site if you’re interested.
Congrats Karl! For the rest of you, have a great weekend.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Brand New has just posted a brief on the re-branding of the Capital One Logo. Why any financial company would want to use a big red boomerang to enhance their brand is beyond me. What is the message? It’s all coming back at you? Return to Sender? It worked for Nike, why not us? While not “officially” released, there is a brief notice about this upcoming new version of their logo that can be seen on the Capital One site.
Coming on the heels of the Xerox re-branding, which was also covered on Brand New about a week ago, one has to wonder what it is that drives these creative studios. Here, in their infinite wisdom, they’ve added a great big red marble. The marble motif has been used recently by such companies as X-Box, AT&T, & UK Total among others.
I guess the game of branding has resorted to schoolyard tactics, or, it could be that they are trying to appeal to our childhood nostalgia. There are some great comments on Brand New, if you’re curious.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Things magazine has just posted an amazing chronological gallery of historical Pelican books covers, called The Pelican Project. Pelican was a branch of Penguin Books added in 1937 to “cover serious contemporary issues” such as History, Sociology, Economics and Politics. (Continued)
