From IKEA Sans to Verdana? Really?

For some reason IKEA has decided to downgrade. With an excuse of its “more efficient and cost-effective” they have changed their house font from IKEA Sans (Futura) to Verdana. This is not good.

Why is this not good? Because IKEA is a company that produces a large amount of printed material e.g. the IKEA catalogue and packaging. Verdana is a font that was created to be used on screen in small body text. Verdana just doesn’t have the elegance or grace that IKEA Sans (Futura) has to pull off large headings and titles. Verdana’s large open letterforms cause it to have a ploddy effect when used as main headings. IKEA Sans (Futrua) has an understated geometric sophistication that suits both large and small text and seems to reflect the ‘design-led’ furniture it’s advertising.

IKEA’s decision to change typeface is being excused away with the reason that IKEA Sans (Futura) doesn’t have enough foreign characters for some markets as well as not being web savvy. So why don’t they just have more characters created for IKEA Sans (Futura) and use modern techniques for the use of non-standard web fonts on the net? Doesn’t that make more sense than to replace a mostly good solution with a worse one?

P.S. If you haven’t guessed, IKEA Sans is Futura but with flat apexes.

Outside the Box

My brother showed me this nice, kind of weird, little video from this guy called Joseph Pelling.

Wedding + Letterpress = Madness

My best friend is getting married and she asked me to design her wedding invitations. Easy right?

Sure it will be easy, apart from I foolishly decided to create the invites on my letterpress. Lets just ignore the fact I have very little experience with my letterpress apart from one small run comprising of one colour. Setting up my press to perfectly align for three passes will be a dawdle! No, not a dawdle more like a marathon. Alignment wasn’t the only problem. There where lots of other little pitfalls along the way. Pitfalls like:

1. We didn’t buy enough stock!

2. The man at the ink warehouse sold me the wrong ink so I had to go back and swap it only to find out the new ink was three times more expensive!

3. I forgot to include the measurements for the crop marks when I was doing my calculations and as a result the plates where 5 mm too big for the bed of the printer. My brother had to built me new runners for the press to compensate.

All of this resulted in a lot of grrrs and arghs.

In the end though everything came together. I was really pleased with the final outcome of the invites. The lining up was near perfect (thanks to my brother), the colours where spot on and the embossing was sharp and clear.

Oh and my friend loved them, which I guess is the most important thing. Check out the full set of photos on my Flickr.

and-per-se-and

When reading Jane Austin’s Persuasion the other day I came across a seemingly strange gathering of characters – &c. I immediately (two days later) set forth to discover the meaning. It didn’t take me long to find out that &c. stood for etc. which of course in Latin means “et cetera” or “and so forth”.

This then got me into the history of the ampersand. The ampersand stands for “and” and the Latin for “and” is “et”. So consequently the ampersand symbol is a fusion of the “e” and “t”. It seems so obvious to me now but my real question from all this is why has it taken me so long to question the ampersand? Of course, one reason is we never seem to question the familiar. There are certain things we are brought up around and know but never seem to question, for instance when we meet someone new we shake their hand. We know what a handshake is for and how to use it but we never question where it comes from. Only a few months ago did I bother to look up the history of the “@” symbol finding out it originally came from accounting. The graphic designer within me feels very disappointed at myself for taking so long to discover the history of the ampersand. News years resolution – question more!

There is a very interesting, concise, history of the ampersand by Jonathan Hoefler over at H&FJ’s.

New Toy! pt.2

As you know a few months ago I bought a box of mixed letterpress type from an antiques fair. Well, now I have a lovely Adana 8x5 printing press to go with it, thanks to ebay and a very nice man in Wales. I have already had my first printing job adding my dad’s company logo to their Christmas cards, yippee!

Quantum of Solace

At the weekend I went to see the new bond film - Quantum of Solace. I was very excited to see the opening titles had been created by MK12 (a little too excited, I think I annoyed the people behind when I yelled out “MK12” in glee). I have been a fan of them ever since I saw the opening titles to Stranger Than Fiction a few years ago (my favourite part is the dish washer). I did enjoy the opening titles to Quantum of Solace, although, they have come along way since Robert Brownjohn’s day, which I think, is kind of sad.















The other thing I couldn’t help but notice was the titles used to introduce every new city in the film. Finally, someone has decided to move away from the usual generic, overdone, typewriter style font found at the bottom right of the screen. It reminds me of the way designers like Saul Bass and Kyle Cooper manipulate opening titles to be more useful and insightful. The place names are given time to breathe and sink into the viewers mind rather then just being plonked in as an after thought. At first I thought the titles where done by MK12 as well but I later found out they were done by Tomato.

Five re-brand

I noticed a few weeks ago that channel Five have changed their branding. It was done by design studio Dixon Baxi. I’m still not sure what I think of the re-brand. I really liked the branding Spin did. I think it really set Five apart from the other channels and moved them away from a bit of a joke to a credible channel. I suspect Dixon Baxi’s brand will grow on me but at the moment I’m still morning the previous Helvetican branding.

New Toy!

Yesterday I went to an antique fair and while there I found a box full of movable metal type! I have all ways loved using traditional methods of printing and my interest grew for movable type when I saw Stephen Fry's documentary on the Gutenberg Press. The box is in a mess with type every where but I'm gunna have fun sorting it all out.

Think of a better place to store your baby

I went on a trip to Ikea the other day as I often do due to a strange gravitational pull I have towards it. While buying a storage box I became very amused by the warning sticker on it. I like to think of it as parenting tips – Do not store your baby in a box.

This Way Up!

This is some inspired way finding for a car park in Melbourne by Axel Peemöller. I love the idea of playing around and misshaping the letters so they can only be viewed correctly from a certain angle nice play with perspective. His web site is really nice to mess around with as well. Will bring hours of joy (well maybe just minutes).

Couple Therapist

Remember the guy I showed you who created the Obama all the colours poster. Well I found these business cards he did for a couple's therapist. She didn't have a big budget and needed a direct way to reach new clients.

Supply and Demand

One of the first things that got me interested in street art/sticker graffitti/stencil graffitii was Obey Giant. After two years in the making Shepard Fairly has relesed his new book Supply and Demand, full of images that have never been published as well as essays and interviews, plus a lovely bit of foil blocking on the front. Brilliant!

All the colours!

This poster was created by a guy called Renan Molin. I have recently completed a project exploring the elections in America. Any way, I found this beautiful poster in support of Obama. I dont really care about it being pro Obama, I just think it looks stunning.

ABC3D!!!

The ABC3D book, so simple and brilliant. The kind of thing you wish you'd thought of yourself....but sadly didn't.

Humanot

I found this guys site while I was researching stuff for my Obama project. He has some nice work and the site is quite fun. Enjoyable!

I like these posters!

I love both of these posters, there from a web site called keep calm gallery. Oh how I wish they where on my wall! Any one want to buy them for me?

the Rather Difficult Font Game

To continue the theme of my new found font wisdom I played the rather difficult font game. I didn't do too well, I got 15/34.

:: Studioaka ::

I found this studio last year and I pretty much love everything they do. My favourite piece is the lottery ad they did a few years ago though.

'A smile is something special, a ribbon is something rare. So I'll be special and I'll be rare, with a smile and a ribbon in my hair....'

Haas Grotesk v. Helvetica

I used to avoid typography like the plague. I was in a naive cloud of denial that I could be a graphic designer and not appreciate it but recently I've become strangely attracted to it. Maybe I'm just growing up. Any way, this poster was designed by a Graphic's student in Wales called Sam Mallet. While on work experience in Zürich Sam created these posters showing the subtle difference between the 1957 typeface Haas Grotesk and the 1960 typeface Helvetica. I bought one of the posters in red/blue, I see it as the cornerstone of my typography revelation.

Juno Titles

Juno is a brilliant, witty, hart warming, intelligent film with a fantastic soundtrack and the opening titles set it off really well. They were done by Shadowplay Studio who also created the titles for Thank You for Smoking (who had the same director as Juno). Check out their website and while your at it take a look at their Flikr page showing how they made the titles.

yU+Co.

This is the web site for Garson Yu's moving image company, yU+Co. Yu used to work with the genius Kyle Cooper at Imaginary Forces. I've been a fan of this studio for a few years now, not only for their work but also this amazing site, I love it!!!