Type Nerd

Trajan

2005-07-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

The overuse of Trajan is on movie posters gets deservedly mocked in the short film Etched in Stone.

The vernacular strikes again

2005-05-24T08:14:00.000-07:00

Over at Speak Up, Marian Bantjes writes about the tacky-yet-lovable road signs that appear all over Saskatoon, Saskatchewan:

Will the real Chicago please stand up?

2005-04-23T23:22:00.000-07:00

This shirt is cute, but I'm dissapointed they used the awful Truetype version, instead of the pixel-perfect original.

Chicago is enjoying a second life as the iPod font, which makes the typenerd happy.

The typenerd tends to get sentimental about old Macs.

Excoffon represent, yo

2005-04-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

I am amazed to discover that Mistral, the typeface of so many hair salons and restaurants, is also featured on the cover of NWA's "Straight outta Compton".

Simonson on Type

2005-04-14T22:09:00.000-07:00

Right Brain Left Field has an interview with Mark Simonson that's worth checking out.

From there I found the work of Christian Schwartz. Amazing stuff. And Eric Olson's Process Foundry as well.

Mega-type

2005-04-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

The net has been abuzz with Google's new satellite view. Here's a view of a Texas landmark with a scale of lettering that defies comprehension.

It's 2.5 miles long. And someone nerdier than me calculated a theoretical point size of 1,468,800.

Letterform Dork

2005-04-03T22:17:00.000-07:00

Typenerd is not Font Geek

PIPS:lab

2005-03-28T20:06:00.000-08:00

The 3D light graffiti of PIPS:lab has been around for a while, but bears noting here.

Cool Text

2005-03-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

Why bother with fancy-pants design software, when you can get your design needs met cheaply and quickly with CoolText.com?

Letraset Drawings

2005-03-23T20:51:00.000-08:00

Before there were computers, designers used rub-down letters for mockups. Kelly Mark uses them to make drawings, much like an analog version of Robotype.

Logography

2005-03-23T08:54:00.000-08:00

Another obsessive catalog of logo variations - this time it's the RoboCop logo

Hatch Show Print

2005-03-20T15:44:00.000-08:00

A beautiful collection of letterpress porn from photographer Marshall Sokoloff.

another typographic flash toy

2005-03-19T15:42:00.000-08:00

typorganism

New fonts from Microsoft

2005-03-18T09:59:00.000-08:00

Microsoft is bundling several new typefaces with Longhorn. They are quite nice, and go a long way towards erasing the stink of Arial, Comic Sans and Matisse (excuse me while I vomit).

Somebody got a font pack

2005-03-16T10:45:00.000-08:00

Somebody got a font pack
Originally uploaded by mathowie.

The horror. THE HORROR.

word toy

2005-03-13T08:24:00.000-08:00

This clever toy creates words using photos of letters taken from Flickr. Just change the end of the url to the word you want.

Czech it

2005-03-12T10:31:00.000-08:00

Hot on the heels of e-a-t there's Typo.cz - a guide to Central European typography. From there I discovered Typo magazine, a Czech/English publication which while prohibitively expensive (for a student), gives away free downloads of back issues as PDFs. I promptly grabbed them all.

Apologies for the terrible pun. I couldn't help myself.

ha ha

2005-03-11T15:37:00.000-08:00

Copyright be damned - the Type Nerd can't resist posting today's Zippy the Pinhead cartoon:

update: yes, I noticed Blogger is unkind to overly wide graphics. I'm too lazy to figure out how to fix it at this point.

e a t

2005-03-10T19:43:00.000-08:00

The e-a-t project is an exhibit of Czech and Slovak typography which brings these countries back together in spirit.

Back

2005-03-10T13:35:00.000-08:00

The Type Nerd has been busy with school, but still found time to play around with Robotype. My work is here and here.

Also of note: Mexican type foundry Kimera. And the sketches are wonderful to see.

Bat-typography

2005-03-02T18:05:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of This is Pop - the evolution of the Batman logo. The late 80s serifed version? Bad idea.

Graffiti Taxonomy

2005-03-02T14:37:00.000-08:00

The fellows from ni9e explore the area where street art intersects fine art. My favorite project is Graffiti Taxonomy, which is a comparative study of the letterforms used in tagging.

I love that the resulting studies got wheatpasted back up on the street.

Type crime #1

2005-03-01T21:34:00.000-08:00

While Apple is impressed with the design of the Oscar poster (as well as the designer's unsurprising love of Macs), the folks at Typophile are decidedly less enthusiastic. As someone there pointed out, the designer took a condensed typeface typeface and stretched it horizontally, which is the biggest type sin in the book.

What's even stranger is that there is a non-condensed extra bold version of the same face.

Yes, I realize that purely in terms of weight the bad version stands out more. But if that's what he wanted he should used a different typeface entirely.

Disney Type

2005-03-01T00:13:00.000-08:00

Someone has painstakingly recreated the Disney font circa 1971, calling it Florida Project. It's free. The main page has more Disney/fonty goodness, like the Walt Disney World font list. It's amazingly comprehensive, although I wish it had pictures of the signs.

A note on terminology

2005-02-28T21:46:00.000-08:00

As a design student, it's been drilled into my head that there's a clear distinction between a font and a typeface - it's a big reason this weblog is called type nerd, not font geek (also, I thought nerd sounded better). Ever since the "Font" menu appeared on the Mac back in '84 the term has become diluted. But if you are going to be proper, a typeface is an entire family (say Times New Roman), while a font is a specific member of the family (like Times New Roman Bold).

Am I already a member?

2005-02-27T22:32:00.000-08:00

Yes, there actually is a Society of Type Aficionados. One of these days the Type Nerd will get around to joining.

A Diversion

2005-02-27T08:30:00.000-08:00

What does a type nerd do for fun? Why, quiz himself with typographic flashcards, of course. Okay, so a former type teacher brought them in for his class, where I was called in for an impromptu visual quiz. I don't have my own set (yet).

While I admit I had some trouble with the Bodoni-esque Walbaum and was thrown by Bembo, I did ID the majority of the deck correctly.

Stereotyping

2005-02-26T12:41:00.000-08:00

A fascinating essay on two typefaces that have been visually stereotyped as black/African: Neuland and Lithos. Most people may not recognize them by name, but Neuland is most recognizable as the Jurassic Park font. Here's a sampling from the essay:

The rest of the Giampietro+Smith site is also worth checking out.

Here we go

2005-02-25T21:45:00.000-08:00

It has been suggested that I maintain a weblog about typography. It's true - I am a type nerd. I am not any kind of expert or authority. Just a design student and lover of all things type-related.