Category: News
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On the terror of glyphs and the joy of reading
What is it like to be a typeface design student? It is both wonderful and wonderfully depressing. You can—and will—spend days looking at a few letters, knowing that their design is bad. They are neither what you had intended nor even what you had managed to to capture fleetingly in a quick sketch (this is…
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My definition of disappointment
When I was in the seventh grade, my dream was that I would grow up some day to look like Axl Rose in the Sweet Child O’ Mine music video. At age 12 (and, err… 28), I adored Axl’s hair, and never forgave my parents for my curly red hair. My younger sister, you see,…
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James Mosley on the long s
James Mosley has posted a text about the long s—and its disappearance from the typesetting of several languages—on his blog. Do travel over and have a read.
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Purchased!
I tracked this book down at the SOAS library yesterday, and decided to purchase a copy online. It is out of print, but available used in many places. I found a bookseller in India who had it in stock (over the fantastic—formerly German—choosebooks.com). Less than £10, including shipping. I wonder how long mail takes to…
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On rain
“One day it started raining, and it didn’t quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin’ rain… and big ol’ fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. Shoo, it even rained at night.” —Forrest Gump
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Fun with Vista
Yesterday, I partitioned my MacBook Pro’s hard drive and installed Windows Vista via Boot Camp. The installation process itself was actually very easy; it was only the preparation that was time consuming. After I decided to add Windows to my Mac, the first step was decide upon a version. I ruled out XP quickly for…
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PAGE, on an uppercase ß
After having lived in Germany for years, I‘m in PAGE, the German design magazine! Did I have to leave the country to get invited to the party? The January 2008 issue features an article on the possible introduction of a capital eszett, which it seems has recently been awarded a Unicode value. The article’s title…
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Uncharted territory!
Well, Devanagari font support on Mac OS X is virtually non-existent. Sure, you can use Monotype Devanagari, but nothing else, at least if you are working with Unicode-encoded text. Monotype Devanagari’s an AAT font; OT isn’t supported yet. But you can’t use AAT on Windows, now can you? In order to make samples of OpenType…
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Don’t shop at MediaMarkt
Also, das war es: MediaMarkt ist schlimm, und ich kaufe da nie wieder ein. Abgesehen von einem schlechten Kundenservice haben sie keine up-to-date Produktdatenbank, eine lächerlich-leere Webseite und keine richtige Möglichkeit sowohl Produkte über eine andere Filiale zu bestellen als auch irgendetwas nach zu ordern.
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What did I get for Christmas?
Christmas gifts received this year? Three sorts of coffee, a Bodum French press to use in the studio in the department at the University that is big enough to share, and two kitchen knives—one of which is so big that I’m afraid to use it—but nothing having anything to do with typography or typeface design,…
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Kurt Weidemann live on CD
In my recent article on Counterpunch for iLoveTypography.com, I asked: Isn’t there a clip on the Internet somewhere where Erik Spiekermann mentions [how typeface design is all about the white spaces]? … take that clip of Erik’s voice and turn it up to 11. Then play it on auto-repeat. It might be a bit difficult…
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On the economy of English
I’ve often heard that German is a more economical language than English. I don’t quite know if this is always true, even though German does seem to have a quite a high number of longer words, even a few massive super-words, like Dampschifffahrtsgesellschaft. But never has the difference between English and German been more clear…
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Mother Mary, save my files
What I would give my father for Christmas this year, if I had more money to spend on presents: www.maria-usb.de. Plug this devotional-shaped USB stick into your computer, and The Holy Mother’s heart will glow, clearly showing that she is watching over your data. Source: Zitty Berlin magazine
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