Beautifully Briefed 25.8: Calming, Hopefully

Type opens up, the best designer you’ve never heard of, and photography to admire and inspire: all this and more for your August edification and enjoyment.

August University Press Coverage on Spine

Rather than show my favorite this month, I thought I’d share four of the runners up:

My favorite of the covers not in the Spine post.

Clockwise from upper left: Duke University Press, Mercer University Press, and two from the University of Washington. These are all good, but just missed being in the post because another option offered a better design — or story.

I’m highlighting these to celebrate the strong design in university work; despite limited budgets — or whatever other, shall we say, challenges universities face these days — most have realized that great design is worth the extra. Long live the University Press!

See the rest at Spine.

Fontastically usable

BrandNew points us at a little treasure posted by Smith and Diction: an expert’s take on which among the Google fonts are worth it, helpfully organized by category. Check it out.

FYI, it’s at Figma, a site I’d heard of but not interacted with, and which took me a minute to learn my way around. (Use the zoom in the upper right, then drag.)

In the comments at BrandNew, several folks point to the two Typewolf lists on the subject, one for Google and one for Adobe/Typekit. (Interestingly, I was not familiar with Typewolf; it was good enough to earn an instant bookmark. Stay tuned for more from them, certainly.)

That was on the 7th. On the 8th, BrandNew linked to a Google Design article on “the benefits of brands — for the brands and for users — making their proprietary typefaces open source and available to all to use, modify, and tinker with.” Google Fonts boasts 17 of them at the moment.

Lastly, on the 15th: Keep Calm and Icon. “Bettina Reinemann, Staff Experience Designer, Brand & Icons, at Adobe, offers an interesting and comprehensive deep dive into the evolution of a handful of Adobe’s most iconic, well, icons and how they have changed over the decades in style, meaning, and depiction.”

BrandNew is subscription, yes, but it’s one of the web’s subscription bargains at less than $25/year and packed with great stuff. I do wish they’d offer a free article or two within a given period of time so new folks can sample before purchasing, but that criticism aside, I can’t recommend them highly enough.

Many Thanks to … Double-Oh Who?

Joe Caroff, designer of so many things yet a so completely unknown personality, died on the 17th — one day short of his 104th (!) birthday. The Guardian has a nice obit … with this graphic:

The 2015 film by Sam Mendes, the 24th James Bond adventure.

That’s right, he’s the guy who designed that logo. John Gruber, at Daring Fireball, has a nice discussion of the logo and its usage within the Bond franchise. He also links to a bunch of Bond one-sheet posters, a couple of which I’d like to post:

The 1962 film by Terence Young, and
The 1987 film by John Glen, the 15th.

I’m of the age to have grown up with Roger Moore, and really liked Timothy Dalton’s first film — it’s a shame it crashed and burned with the second — whose portrayal of the character has an edge you don’t see again until Daniel Craig stepped into the role.

But I digress. Joe Caroff’s poster history covers some greats, including this one:

Original 1961 U.S. one sheet poster by Joe Caroff.

But it’s a tidbit on the Wiki entry that warrants my spending a minute remembering Joe Caroff: he designed the original jacket for Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead:

Jacket design by Joe Caroff. Photograph courtesy of The Norman Mailer Society.

When I had the privilege of redesigning The Mailer Review in 2017, the first cover paid homage to the above design:

The illustration is a self-portrait by Norman Mailer. (See Wikipedia for the old design.)

Read more about Joe Caroff’s many accomplishments at Print (spoiler: Steven Heller hadn’t heard of him before 2016!) or DesignWeek.

And Now For Something Completely … Wait.

A quick drive-by here: this is a Buick.

It’s quite literally out of this world: the Electra Orbit Concept is only for the Chinese market — their biggest. The interior, especially, has more than a few overtones of the Jaguar Type 00 concept. (Which is looking more and more prescient, frankly; see previous coverage.) Read more at Motor1 or the Autopian.

“Sedans are dead,” someone said. Hmph.
August’s Photography Faves
100 Years of the Leica 1
1925’s Leica 1, the world’s first mass-produced 35mm camera.

PetaPixel has a nice piece covering all of the many ways the Leica 1 — the first from “a tiny German camera company” — has had such an outsized influence on the huge world that is photography today.

The 2025 M11 New York Edition. You can absolutely see the family resemblance.
2025 iPhone Photography Awards

It’s time for the annual iPhone Photography Awards — and my annual observation that the camera you have with you is the most powerful of all. And since a substantial percentage of the world carries an iPhone, the possibilities are nearly endless.

PetaPixel has a round up of the winners, but it’s the honorable mentions I’d like to highlight:

Architecture: Photograph by Adrian Beasley, United Kingdom.
Architecture: Photograph by Vladyslav Vasylkevych, Ukraine.
Cityscapes: A second from Adrian Beasley, United Kingdom. (I didn’t see that until after I’d selected ones to post — and decided to post it anyway.)

Okay, one from 2nd place:

The famed “Other” category: Dominic Martín Dähncke, Tenerife, Canary Islands (Spain).

See many, many more — nearly all fantastic — at the IPPAwards website: 2025 iPhone Photography Awards Announces Winners of Its 18th Annual Competition.

Special Bonus #1: “Perhaps no building in the world captures the early 20th-century art deco movement quite like the Chrysler Building, which has been an iconic fixture in the Manhattan skyline since 1930. Its grace and beauty have captivated photographers for decades. For one NYC shooter, the building has become his life’s work. Mitchell Funk has been photographing the Chrysler Building for 50 years; his images are vibrant, eye-catching, and extremely creative.”

2025 Ocean Photographer of the Year Awards, and Prints for Wildlife

“Fragility, beauty, and urgency characterize” this competition, with “an emphasis on ocean conservation and the outsize influence humans have on marine life,” This is Colossal says. (More at PetaPixel, too.)

From the Adventure category: photograph by Ben Thouard.
Human Connections: photograph by Jianping Li.
Impact: photograph by Henley Spiers.

On that last one: “This green turtle was killed by a boat strike, an unnatural and unnecessary death for an endangered species,” says photographer Henley Spiers. “Only recently deceased, it is partly decomposed, with the haunting view of the bare skull in contrast to the skin, which remains on the rest of its body, and the juvenile fish which have adopted the turtle carcass as a form of safe refuge. We came across this turtle by chance, a dispiriting sight at the end of a long and fruitless day at sea. I can only hope that this image acts as a reminder of the enormous human burden placed on turtles and the ocean as a whole.”

It had the intended effect. Impact, indeed.

So, you might ask: how can I help? Prints for Wildlife is one way.

“Lifeboat,” Alaska. Photograph by Casey Cooper. (Sold out, alas.)

“In 2025, the crisis isn’t a virus — it’s a withdrawal of critical funding for wildlife and conservation,” says program co-founder Pie Aerts. “Prints for Wildlife is more than a fundraiser; it’s a platform for connection, consciousness and hope in a time of crisis.” Browse photos by more than 200 photographers on the fundraiser’s website. The limited-edition prints will be available until September 21.

“Caracal,” Tanzania. Photograph by Elena Didevska.

Special Bonus #2: “The Natural History Museum in London unveiled a first look at 15 of the breathtaking photos that are in the running to win the 61st Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, including a lion staring down a cobra, a pack of Arctic wolves, and bats flying through the dark toward the camera; the 2025 Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest attracted 60,636 total entries, the most ever in the contest’s illustrious history.”

2025 Capture the Dark Sky Contest

DarkSky International announced the winners of its fifth annual Capture the Dark photography contest. Winners across eight main categories showcase the best in astrophotography and demonstrate why it is vital to protect dark skies worldwide; PetaPixel has a nice roundup.

In other words, I’m not going to let you go enjoy your Labor Day weekend (here in the US, at least) without closing out with a photograph of two of my favorite things: lupines against a beautiful night sky.

“Celestial Dance over Lupine Fields,” New Zealand. Photograph by Lucy Yunxi Hu.

Have a great September, everyone.

Beautifully Briefed 23.9: Falling into Brilliance

As summer turns to fall, let’s take a look at Type 1 fonts, a library index, revolutionary posters, posters for “get lectured,” and two different photography contests. Let’s get right into it.

Adobe discontinues a standard: The Type 1 font

Back in the early days of desktop publishing — up to about the turn of the century, give or take — everything typographic used PostScript, a programming language by Adobe. (Other stuff, too, like Adobe’s vector program, Illustrator.) PostScript fonts were the so-called “Type 1” variety, made up of a bitmapped “suitcase” that housed the standard display sizes and an outline file used by the output device to print clean, what-you-see-is-what-you-get beauty.

The Apple LaserWriter Plus and some vintage Macs: nostalgia! (Note the book — heh.) Image: YouTube.

Companies from Apple to Microsoft didn’t want Adobe to hold a monopoly on output tech, so later fonts evolved into TrueType and then OpenType, the latter of which is the standard today.

So much so that Adobe has now discontinued Type 1, and they, along with Microsoft, have stopped being supported. Which is understandable and yet a shame: some of us still have hundreds of them.

Ars Technica has the best roundup.

Meanwhile, I’m going to investigate a conversion utility. Will report back.

All the Libraries in London

It’s Nice That has a post that reminds us of a library’s central purpose: to leave knowing more than you did when you entered. “The library, in our shared public imagination, is a special place,” the author argues — reminding us of what libraries were established to do, often distinctly different from the modern reality (especially in the United States).

In the library you begin to be convinced that language matters, that words have the power to clarify, to rouse, to make us feel something, to help us understand the political and cultural features of historical and contemporary moments.

Lola Olufemi, It’s Nice That
All the Libraries in London. Cover design: unknown. Image via It’s Nice That.

All the Libraries in London does something artistic with a simple listing, elevating it, reminding us how compelling the ideal that libraries represent really is:

This is a political and artistic listing, one that invites the reader to rediscover their own memories of their local library as a site of discovery. The book’s authors invite us to reflect on our personal relationship to libraries as well as the necessity of collectively securing their future existence.

Lola Olufemi, It’s Nice That
Alan Kitching, Durning Library. Image via It’s Nice That.

We need more of this everywhere, but especially here in the States. Meanwhile, check out this great item at It’s Nice That.

Special Bonus #1: Another British treasure, via the very British Antiques Roadshow (a British original, natch): this incredible poster by Ralph Steadman.

Ralph Steadman’s Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) poster. Image via Wikipedia.

Special Bonus #2: British book designer Steve Leard has launched a new book design podcast, Cover Meeting, featuring interviews between Leard and fellow book designers on the work, the industry, and more. The Bookseller has more.

Cuban Movie Posters. No, Really.

While we’re on the subject of great posters — and It’s Nice That — let’s talk about how Cuba’s revolution-era political posters transformed their poster design for films. Appropriately enough, a new film, El Cartel Cubano, highlights these amazing (and, likely, never seen before) items.

Besos Robados, ICAIC, by Sotolongo & Carole Goodman. Image via It’s Nice That.

How come our posters in the US aren’t this beautiful? What did this say about the priorities of the revolution? What did the medium or choices in the scarcity of materials used say about the economic situation in Cuba?” It’s these questions which form the bedrock of El Cartel Cubano, a fascinating and tender tribute to the artists on the island.

Adrienne Hall, co-director, El Cartel Cubano
Sur, by Michael Myiares Holland. Image via It’s Nice That.

I have to admit: this isn’t a subject I would have leapt at, but It’s Nice That sold it. Awesome.

Get Lectured (on Architecture)

Closing out our trifecta of great posters, Archinect‘s Get Lectured series brings us these fantastic items from their Fall 2023 series:

Woodbury University School of Architecture’s Fall 2023 lecture series.
The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture’s Fall 2023 lecture series

Some real gems: see more.

Finalists of the 2023 Urban Photography Awards

Going to soapbox a little here: pay-to-enter photo contests aren’t usually something I want to spread the word about. So ArchDaily‘s basically-a-press-release, “URBAN Photo Awards 2023 has announced its list of Finalist Photographers, marking the penultimate stage of the international contest,” was guaranteed a pass.

But there’s a problem: some of the photographs are really compelling.

Untitled, by Claudia Costantino

This one’s my fave:

Back to the 70s, by Stephane Navailles

See the contest website, or ArchDaily‘s post.

Winners of the 2023 Black and White Photography Awards

Another contest, yes. They’re everywhere. But … wow.

Street Lights – Ottawa, by Gareth Jones, category winner, architecture
Another mushroom? By Hector Ballester Ballester. Silver mention, architecture.
Alamillo bridge, by Manuel Ponce Luque. Finalist.
The concert, by Helena García Huertas. Finalist.
Reflections on the stairwell, by Max Dobens. Finalist.

And that’s just the buildings/architecture — there are portraits, street photography, landscapes, and more. A reminder to aspire, every day, with every image.

The Black and White Photo Awards (2023). (Via PetaPixel.)