Visual Culture

NYC based designer and photographer Luke Connolly a side project on Tumblr called NYC Type that is worth a gander. He explains the idea behind the project:

The inspiration for NYC Type came from my recent move to Manhattan. As I wandered around in my first days here, I noticed that the typography on the signs around midtown ranged from atrocious to amazing. I wanted to figure out a way to collect the gems for my own inspiration and share what I find with others and engage the design community here.

The Alphabet from n9ve on Vimeo.

“The Alphabet”, an animated short by Alessandro Novelli features morphing letters of the alphabet—each letter in the sequence represents the first letter of a type of font. Enjoy!

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We’re all for self-expression, but these font inspired tees appear a tad passé. The battle rages on right here…

Photography and cell manipulation: Frank Conrad. Lab assistant: Bastion Ridley.

Creative Review seems to always come up with something new for their conceptually driven covers. Previous issues have taken them as far as Mumbai, while their February issue enabled subscribers to ‘grow their own tomatoes’. This month Creative Review literally grew the cover in a lab (as seen above). For more on how the cover was executed go here.

Image via:

Well said!

Fifteen years ago, Vincent Connare designed Comic Sans as a small software project for Microsoft. While designers cringe at the sight of it—the fun, whimsical font is one of the most popular fonts used today.

Jason Brubaker has compiled a solid list of reasons NOT to use comic sans that we have included below.

1. Just because it has “COMIC” in the name and it’s FREE doesn’t mean you should use it in your comic that you spent years laboring over. In fact, because it comes free on every computer in existence know to mankind, you might want to choose a different font for the sake of standing out from the massive crowd who blindly use it.

2. You will instantly look unprofessional to anyone who has already learned this lesson no matter how good your art or story may be. Designers and Letterers will want to roundhouse kick your face.

3. Comic Sans has uneven default kerning. Some letters are spaced weird which hurts the flow of reading. Below is an example of bad kerning. This is Comic Sans but I pushed the kerning so it was obvious to a non-letterer. (more…)

Arial Font is bullsh*t. Take a close look at the letter ‘R’.

A little sumthin for the Helvetica fans. Helveticons are 245 inspired icons based on the Helvetica Bold typeface. For a preview go here.

Thanks Tushar for the tip.

The ‘Man Bag’ is getting conceptual in a collaborated effort between London-based bag and accessories brand chris & tibor and designer Walter Van Beirendonck.

We recently received a copy of the 2010 Think Green Calendar by EIGA, a design firm out of Germany. The calendar shows contemporary “Eco-typography” and special “green works” of designers from various disciplines worldwide. “Think Green!” creates a stimulating visual inventory of the fusion of ecology and design. For more on the Think Green Calendar you know what to do.

Image by David Oberholtzer:

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