Photography and design for print production

Tag: typography

Beautifully Briefed, Mid-September 2022 [Updated]: Indigenous Type, Italic Type, Adobe Types “Stop,” and Two Awesome New Cameras

A wide selection of items for the beginning of fall, from positive fonts to jolly cameras — with Adobe and Pantone pouring some cold water on things. Let’s get to it!

Indigenous Letterforms

As Americans, Europeans, or, more generally, Westerners, we take for granted that fonts will reflect the various pieces of individual type — that is, letterforms — that we’ll need. But not everyone falls into that category.

North American Indigenous fonts — with updated Unicode. Major Kudos. (Courtesy of Dezeen.)

Dezeen points us to an especially interesting effort: “Typotheque typography project aims to protect Indigenous languages from “digital extinction.” In this case, folks who were in the Americas long before Westerners arrived used languages often not written down, or that use letterforms that simply aren’t supported in modern typographic systems.

“When [the Unicode Standard] doesn’t contain characters in a given language’s orthography, it is not possible for that community to accurately use their language on digital text platforms.”
Typotheque typeface designer Kevin King

Fascinating. Read more at Dezeen.

Italic Letterforms

The always-great Hoefler & Co. spends a minute educating us about italics:

Hoefler examines italics: point-and-sketch

Hoefler’s Fifteen Italic Textures illustration

Italics can be the most colorful part of a type family, diverging dramatically from their roman cousins. Here’s a look at twelve kinds of italic typeface, with some notes on their cultural contexts, historical backgrounds, and practical applications.
Hoefler & Co.

Read the article, “Italics Examined,” at Hoefler & Co.’s Typography.com.

Adobe Types, “Stop.”

Adobe and Pantone are having a . . . thing. As a result, all Pantone spot libraries have been removed from Adobe products:

A classy move, completely in character for both companies, to reach into users’ machines and remove stuff they had paid for and may rely on because of some licensing spat.
Nick Heer, Pixel Envy

I didn’t get a notice in either InDesign or Photoshop, but a check in InDesign (the CC 2022, aka 17.4, version) shows only the CMYK libraries:

Adobe’s Pantone+ CMYK (Coated) color picker, from InDesign CC 2022

You can subscribe to the additional libraries from Pantone for $60/year. Book design is almost exclusively CMYK, so I won’t be . . . but grrrr.

On the subject of Canadians: thanks to Nick Heer’s north-of-the-border reporting for the notice.

Update, 28 September, 2022: Adobe got around to putting up a banner in my version of InDesign — blaming Pantone:

This notice showed up September 27th, 2022.

They’ve put up a “help” page. (I took a moment to fill in the feedback at the bottom of that page, too: “Removing features we’ve paid for is incredibly uncool, Adobe. Shame on you.”)

Two Awesome New Cameras, from $100 to $100,000

So Pagani, the multi-million-dollar sports car manufacturer, has decided to market large-format cameras. Okay!

One of Pagani’s new camera models

A closeup of the (beautifully-detailed) tripod plate for Pagani’s new cameras.

Incredible, breathtaking detail and quality, based on Gibellini models but taken to 11. But like their cars, mere mortals need not apply: their cameras start over $100,000.

Mortals can dream, sure, but here on Earth, I encourage an order from this Ukrainian company instead:

Jollylook’s Pinhole Instant Mini film camera

Jollylook’s Pinhole Instant Mini in situ

They’re based on instant film cartridges, are made of recycled materials, look incredibly cool, and a kit starts at an incredibly-reasonable $99. Throw in a few extra dollars to support Ukraine and . . . feel Jolly.

Thanks to This is Colossal for the link.

September 17, 2022
Beautifully Briefed, August 2022 [Updated]: Drobo, Rolling Stone, Aston Martin, and Bugatti

Three interesting logo redesigns this month, plus a moment where venti has nothing to do with coffee. Oh, and a airy bonus.

Drobo Declares Bankruptcy

Generally speaking, I’m not one to engage in schadenfreude, aka “enjoying the pain or suffering of another.” (Wiki. Anyone surprised that the Germans have a word for this … but I digress.)

A selection of expensive, unreliable junk.

Back in 2011, I lost two Drobos in short order — and with them, the majority of my back files. Project I’d worked on, photographs I’d taken, personal documents, years worth of stuff, just gone.

Drobo, the company, did nothing to help, offering neither solutions nor apologies. I wasn’t alone; forums across the ’net suggested that I should have chosen more carefully.

It turns out they should have, too. Good.

~~Gloat~~ Read more at DPReview or PopPhoto.

Rolling Stone’s New Logo

To call Rolling Stone‘s place in America culture iconic might be selling it short, and their logo plays a large role in that. In 2018, they flattened it — leading that trend, possibly — and it lost something.

However, this month, it’s back:

Rolling Stone’s 2022 logo redesign.

“The assignment was a paradox. How could we make the logo look like it did in the past, without making it feel dated? My hope is that loyal readers will believe the old logo is back, but on closer inspection will be surprised to notice how much it has been modernized.”
Jesse Ragan, XYZ Type

The “old logo” he’s referring to is the one that ran from 1981–2018, but there were others, too:

Rolling Stone’s lettering shapes through the years. See more at both links.

A great study in logo evolution: read more at the Type Network, and lettering specifics from XYZ Type. Awesome. (Hat tip to, as usual, Brand New.)

Aston Martin’s New Logo

On the subject of subtlety, Aston Martin usually isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Their recent logo redesign, however, falls into that category:

Wings of Glory (so to speak)

The evolution of their logo emphasizes those small steps:

AM’s logo through the years.

Not a great amount of information on this one, but the accompanying photographs of the logomark being made are fantastic. See more at The Drive, with more at Brand New.

Bugatti’s New Logo

Subtlety and Bugatti rarely — if ever — fit in the same sentence. Aston is stratospheric as far as I’m concerned, so Bugatti would qualify as the antithesis of subtlety. But, but, but: there’s something about one.

The new Mistral. (Sorry, it’s sold out.)

They have a new logo and marketing campaign to go with:

Specifics, courtesy of Interbrand.

The Mistral from the back, showing the new type treatment.

Read up at It’s Nice That. Car and Driver has more information on the Mistral.

Update, 20 Sept., 2022: Brand New weighs in on Bugatti’s updated logo.

Bonus: In the Skies

It’s been a busy August, including having to make a lightning trip through the usually-not-fun Atlanta airport. But there’s always a bright spot at the end of that tunnel: being the little boy again, awed by the simple act of flying.

Better still, the flight was on a 757, the sports car of big planes. Everybody around me had their window shades pulled and noses in their phones, but I was looking out the window:

Delta Ship 5654, Above Clouds and Sea

See you in September!

August 31, 2022
50 Books, 50 Covers: 2021 Edition

AIGA has announced their winners of the 2021 50 Books, 50 Covers competition:

With 605 book and cover design entries from 29 countries, this year’s competition recognizes and showcases excellence in book design from around the world. […] Eligible entries for the 2021 competition were open to books published and used in the marketplace in 2021.
AIGA Press Release

In this year’s competition, innovative book designs for topics ranging from designing and motherhood, African surf culture, stories of resistance, visual histories of Detroit, Black food traditions, and more all give our jury life, hope, and visible windows into new possible worlds. The covers and books we looked at had a diverse range of visual language and took aesthetic risks.
Silas Munro, AIGA [Competition] Chair

As usual, there are items here that I haven’t seen before, along with several that surfaced on others’ “best of 2021” book design lists (see that Foreword post for my faves). Also as usual, there are some excellent choices.

Further, there’s something in this competition that you don’t see in the usual “best of” posts: interiors. Half of the competition is covers, sure, but the other half considers the whole book design — and sometimes, as I can definitely attest, an underwhelming cover can lead to a treasure within.

But enough talking. My favorites, in no particular order:

Cover by George McCalman.

Book design by George McCalman.

This is one from the 2021 “best of” finalists that I didn’t post about — but now that I’ve seen the interior…. So very worthy. (See more.)

Cover design by David Chickey and Mat Patalano.

Book design by David Chickey and Mat Patalano.

This series of three books not only have striking covers I’d not seen before but exceptionally competent interiors done on matte paper, a personal favorite. (Click through for more examples.) Excellent.

Design overseen by Haller Brun.

Design overseen by Haller Brun.

In this fascinating book, architectural photographer Iwan Baan and (Pritzker-winning) architect Francis Kéré “set out to capture how the sun’s natural light cycle shapes vernacular architecture.” While I may be slightly biased in terms of architecture and photography, this one’s a winner. (Read the AIGA’s take.)

Cover by Andrea A. Trabucco-Campos.

Book design by Andrea A. Trabucco-Campos.

“A little overly precious,” the AIGA says … while awarding it a prize. Completely fresh, I say, with interesting content presented in a way that does considerably more than interest. Well done. (See them apples.)

Cover by Gary Fogelson and Ryan Waller.

Book design by Gary Fogelson and Ryan Waller.

“The type on the cover and in the body is perfect, in all ways and choices. The use of the gutter for captions is a great understanding of the art and a perfect way to save space. The page numbers too.”
Brian Johnson, AIGA Judge

This is one of those books that you have to say, “I wish I’d done that.” Great stuff. (See its individual entry.)

The Time Formula. Cover by Honza Zamojski.

Book design by Honza Zamojski.

There always seems to be some projects that violate book design “rules” — this one doesn’t have a title on the cover, has page numbers in the gutters, and more. Yet this book, about a sculpture project, makes for interesting viewing indeed. (See more.)

Last, we have a couple that are only covers:

Cover by Janet Hansen.

This was considered for my favorites of 2021 (and made it onto others’ lists). I’m glad to have been given the chance to call it out. Excellent in its simplicity. (See the AIGA entry.)

Last, but certainly not least:

Cover by Lydia Ortiz.

Another advantage of this competition: seeing more than the front cover. And this cover, front, back, and spine, is so much more — especially in person: black plus four neon inks. Wow. (See the AIGA’s praise.)

Many, many more to choose from at AIGA: set aside a little time, wander through all of the projects chosen, and truly enjoy. (Via Locus.)

FYI: See last year’s 50 Books, 50 Covers, too.

July 14, 2022
Beautifully Briefed, Late June 2022: AIA’s Best Architectural Photography, 2022 Logo Trends, and … Buick!

Three items for the end of June, 2022: AIA Los Angeles announces photography awards, the 2022 edition of the Logo Lounge logo trends report is out, and Buick makes its new logo official. Let’s get into the details.

AIALA Photography Awards

The Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA|LA) has announced this year’s winners of the annual Architectural Photography Awards, and there’s some pretty great stuff:

Ryan Gobuty: Santa Fe (Santa Fe, NM)

Taiyo Watanabe: C-Glass House (Dillon Beach, CA)

Tim Griffith: Mission Bay (San Francisco, CA)

See more at AIA |LA. (Via Archinect.)

2022 Logo Trends Report

The always-excellent Brand New points us at Logo Lounge’s 2022 Logo Trends report, it’s 20th annual look at what logos and branding, as a group, are looking like this year.

Logo Lounge 2022 Logo Trends Report

[W]hile there are still corporate-looking marks being crafted there is a stronger effort to find ways to identify products that are artisanal and handcrafted.
Bill Gardner, Logo Lounge

Corporations trying to be more human. (News at 11.) But then, my use of that particular phrase perhaps betrays my lack of being in touch with the modern corporate world; I think publishing is a different animal, and prefer being part of that world despite the regular influence of corporate entities there, too.

Nonetheless, following logo trends is, from a purely graphic design perspective, worthwhile — and this report summarizes beautifully. Read on.

Buick’s New Logo, Officially

We’ve touched upon it before, but Buick has, with the release of the Electra Wildcat concept, officially updated its logo:

Official: Buick’s new logo

Electra is Buick’s name for electric cars, simultaneously stating the obvious while giving a big nod to past models — and the Wildcat concept is, dare I say it, borderline cool:

Scandinavian, American, Futuristic, Retro … Buick!

Both Buick and Cadillac have hinted at more Art Deco in their upcoming products, perhaps best illustrated on this concept’s interior:

It’s a head rest, folks.

Nice. (Not even remotely possible on a production model, but still.) Read more on Buick’s new logo and transition to an electric car brand at Car and Driver or The Drive.

See you in July!

Update, 12 August 2022: Brand New weighs in: A New Point of View… ick

June 28, 2022
Beautifully Briefed [Updated]: Book Six-Fer, June ’22

A book design treat for your Monday morning: four of my favorite new book covers from last month’s debuts.

How To Be Eaten. Design by Julianna Lee.

Aged, distressed paper is a great look when done well, and this one hits all the right notes. The size relationship between the characters, the glow around the eyes, the two color choices, the type, all of it — great stuff.

Sedating Elaine. Design by Janet Hansen.

A veritable how-to on less-is-more. Brilliant.

Vladimir. Design by Katie Tooke.

Another solid-color triumph. Great font choice here, too. Awesome.

I’ve saved the best for last:

You Have a Friend in 10A. Design by Kelly Blair.

Great Circle has featured before, and this follow-up takes us inside the plane and into the safety brochure in the best possible way. Great, brilliant, and awesome wrapped into one.

Via LitHub and Spine, as usual. Have a good week!

Update, June 20th: WABE, Atlanta’s NPR station, has a summer reading list out, highlighting Georgia books and authors — and I’d like to include two of the covers here:

Invisible Child.

The grainy photograph, the wonderfully placed city skyline, and classic typography, combined with the diagonal cutline, elevate this title from mundane to eye-catching.

The Sweetness of Water.

Excellently distressed doesn’t begin to describe this, on many levels. Side note: it’s a terrible shame that the Oprah and Booker call-outs have been elevated to logo status in what can politely be described as a distraction (from a book designer’s point of view, at least).

June 13, 2022
Beautifully Briefed, May 2022: Two on Type, Two on Photography, and Kottke
This month’s favorites cover a delightful new extension of the typeface DaVinci, Google’s updated mega-font, Noto, photographs of a desert aircraft boneyard from above, and mega-photographs of the Milky Way.

Before we get there, however, I wanted to wish Jason Kottke — whose 24 years of web sleuthing has been a source for items here on Foreword dating back to its original iteration in the ’90s — good luck on his sabbatical:

“I need some space to think and live and have generative conversations and do things, and then I’ll make something, but I can’t tell you what it is just yet.”¹ That’s the sort of energy I need to tap into for a few months.

Hear, hear.

The Beautiful DaVinci Italic

It’s Nice That points us to a new, extended version of the font DaVinci, done for Sydney’s Biennale:

“When you do this sort of type exercise — based on printed letters — it gives a very organic shape and form, in opposition to the very metallic sharp shape from type materials.” Furthering this organic look by pushing the fluidity curse at its maximum, Virgile ended with a design “which is very historical, yet with a contemporary twist.”

Just look at those glyphs!

Makes you want to find an excuse to use it. But that’s not all: Flores is an incredibly diverse artist whose work both challenges and inspires. See more.

Google’s Noto

Called “A Typeface for the World,” Google’s Noto defines “megaproject.”

Noto is a collection of high-quality fonts with multiple weights and widths in sans, serif, mono, and other styles. The Noto fonts are perfect for harmonious, aesthetic, and typographically correct global communication, in more than 1,000 languages and over 150 writing systems.

Google’s Noto font collection.

According to Google,

“Noto” means “I write, I mark, I note” in Latin. The name is also short for “no tofu”, as the project aims to eliminate ‘tofu’: blank rectangles shown when no font is available for your text.

While the font itself has been around for a few years — 2013 seems like yesterday in so many ways! — it’s updated regularly, cover 150 out of the 154 scripts defined in Unicode, and deserves attention from every web designer and type nut. Read more at Google or Wikipedia. (Via Kottke.)

Aircraft Boneyard, From an Aircraft

This is Colossal introduces us to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, whose desert conditions are ideal for storing — and scrapping — aircraft:

What happens when the military’s aircraft are end-of-lifed

The photographs are by Bernhard Lang — whom Colossal has highlighted before — and who has an incredible talent for finding patterns from above. See many more at his website.

Milky Way Photography

We don’t get many opportunities here in Middle Georgia, but in other, less populous (read: less light-polluted) places in the world, the Milky Way shines forth from the heavens:

Mountain, redefined.

The Guardian points us to the 2022 Milky Way Photographer of the Year, and many just wow:

Take cover . . . in awe!

Check ’em all out, be inspired to take one of your own, or simply be reminded just how big this system we’re a part of is. Enjoy.
- 1
  Alexandra Bell, NYT ↩︎
May 23, 2022
Beautifully Briefed, Late March 2022: Type Museum, Toshiko Mori, and … Buick?

Catching up with a few unrelated stories that I’ve been meaning to post — including one pretty significant failure on my part, one potentially significant failure, and because not everything should be about fail, an extremely interesting and thoughtful interview.

Tiny Type Museum Sold Out

I was cleaning up open Safari tabs on my phone the other day — the detritus that results from checking things on the fly when out and about, often or never closed — and noticed that I’d sort-of bookmarked something for action and … missed it. Crap!

The Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule, with specimens and those beautiful drawer pulls.

The Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule is a celebration by journalist and printing historian Glenn Fleishman of type and printing, and an effort at preserving history for future generations to re-discover. Each custom, handmade wood museum case holds several dozen genuine artifacts from the past and present, including a paper mold for casting newspaper ads in metal, individual pieces of wood and metal type, a phototype “font,” and a Linotype “slug” (set with a custom message), along with original commissioned art, a letterpress-printed book, and a few replicas of items found in printing shops.

The Tiny Type Museum. (Bottom drawer.)

The museum includes a letterpress-printed book written for the project, Six Centuries of Type & Printing, in which Fleishman traces the development of type and printing starting before Gutenberg printed his Bible around 1450 up through the present day. This book acts as “docent” for the museum, providing insight into the stages in technological and artistic development that took place, and explaining the importance and nature of the artifacts. It also slides out neatly as part of a sled from the top of the museum case, and provides the visible name.

The letterpress book is still available: get your copy, or subscribe to the podcast. But even if you don’t, take a moment to appreciate the work that went into this — well done, indeed.

Buick’s New Logo

This one … I dunno. The race to do car logos flat black-and-white has seemed like a race to the lowest common denominator. (See previous coverage of BMW, Volvo, Cadillac, and more.) Below, Buick’s old (left) and new (right) logos, courtesy of Motor1:

The trademark filing for Buick’s new logo.

Thankfully, there’s been a leak — Instagram, natch, so no link here — demonstrating that it’ll still be in color:

From Instagram (alas): The new Buick logo in living color.

Still, not sure. Will have to see the official announcement and package that goes with it; Motor Trend suggests that it might be part of an EV-only future. Stay tuned for Brand New’s take, I guess….

Toshiko Mori

The former chair of Harvard’s graduate architecture program has given a great and wide-ranging interview to New Reader:

I think innovation doesn’t come in one huge leap. It’s a series of small steps. Accumulations of small discoveries, followed by incremental implementation. And then it all adds up. Innovation is not a single idea—it’s incredibly incremental and additive. Even these small discoveries can change the way we think about things very quickly. So I think every step of the way—problematizing “what are the issues?” and “what are the solutions?” filtering issues of sustainability, supply chain, accessibility, will eliminate many solutions which are not possible. And then you end up with small nuggets of potential. In a way it’s very systematic, innovation, and so is experimentation. It’s the elimination of what’s not possible and focusing on goals.

Toshiko Mori. Image courtesy of New Reader.

You know, history is not about the past, really. History is about the story of an individual interpreting history. Historians cannot be unbiased narrators. Every history is a story, and then yes, there are facts—which are important, but the way you connect facts and then make diverse narratives is super interesting.

As you can see, Fox News provides false narratives, and a lot of times they skew the facts, and that’s a problem. It can be used dangerously, but it can also be used productively. I think that’s what makes history rich. It’s not about the past, it’s about projecting into the future. So when I teach students, I ask them to make their own story based upon their research. But it’s a story—so that’s kind of their own reality. And based upon that reality, they can develop diverse narratives and then communicate the story to others. It’s not as if you have different opinions, but you have different stories to share. It’s not about controversial opinions, but about the way we each look at life very, very differently—and that enriches everybody.

The whole thing is definitely worth a read: Archinect News called it a “nuanced interview,” and if anything, that’s an undersell. Please go, reflect, and appreciate.

Side note: New Reader‘s notes throughout the interview deserve special mention (see the red Greek letters and separate, well, sidenotes). Nice.

March 31, 2022
I Swear, This Title….

Kottke recently revisited a theme that’s been running for a few years now: titles with a swear — f*ck, in this case — in the title. According to Slate, the practice stems from the 2011 parenting title Go the F*ck to Sleep, and has accelerated over the years.

I’m more interested in the design of such a title. Bookstores, advertisers, and publicists demand that the swear never be completely spelled out, but that doesn’t restrict great design ideas. Here are a few of my favorites:

Love the fork. (So to speak.)

The less-is-more approach.

Whales as sardines.

Interesting choice with the capitals, or lack thereof.

Note the over-arching theme: no, not that — the lack of photography. The vast majority of these titles are text based, supposedly because something competing with the swear would detract from the shock value. There’s a primary color thing going, too, probably for the same reason.

Most of the time:

Self-help, with style.

Something different for your day!

March 28, 2022