free variable

I hadn’t noticed Frutiger Serif before; it’s very nice. It’s too bad that (1) I’ve basically already decided on a dissertation typeface and (2) I’m too poor to license new fonts right now.

Thanks to Mark Eli Kalderon for bringing this cartoon to my attention.

I’m excited about Bembo’s Zoo, since I like type, design, and children’s books. However, the official site commits a horrific gaffe. In the “o” on the right, it says “Click here if you don’t have Flash:”

Since I prefer to avoid Flash, I did so, expecting a non-Flash-enfeebled version of the site. Instead, I got this.

(Bembo’s Zoo link via DF.)

Well, if you needed any further evidence for my claim about Myriad, I’m happy to oblige; Wal-Mart’s new branding eschews the hyphenation and is obviously based on a certain ubiquitous typeface:

Armin Vit is, I think, essentially right about the effect of removing the hyphen and all-caps:

[W]ith no reasoning or no explanation of what the new star burst stands for, or why the decision to change to a single word, all we have to go by is the logo that replaces the 16-year-old sans serif that was as thick and heavy as the beige boxes it adorned for so long…. The change to title case helps humanize Walmart with a name that reads more like John, Albert, Sarah or Wilbur….

It will be interesting to see how, or if, this new branding affects public perception of Walmart over time. I don’t have the sense that Walmart is a particularly image-conscious company — all of their current branding seems clumsily transparent and rhetorically amateurish to me. Will a new logo steer Walmart’s brand away from its current association with philistines who don’t mind melamine pet food?

In any case, removing the hyphen from “Wal-Mart” is far less jarring than it was when “Kmart” did the same thing. Honestly, “Kmart” seems like the name of a talking duck from a fake Icelandic children’s book: “Kmart was sad, because he had no more cookies and couldn’t play with his brothers and sisters. Suddenly, a friendly dog arrived!” “Walmart” at least looks like a string of letters that could be pronounced “wôl-märt” and might naturally occur so ordered in American English.

(via DF)

One. Is Myriad the Helvetica of the aughts? This may well be confirmation bias, but I see Myriad everywhere in corporate identities and advertising. In a five minute span this weekend in Milwaukee, I saw Myriad parking garages, Myriad Summerfest posters, and
Myriad Verizon Wireless ads — and these just walking around the block! Is Myriad becoming so ubiquitous, like Helvetica in the 1970s, that we might soon not even notice it anymore? Of course, I love Myriad and have long used it for slides and as a headline sans in print work; certainly its widespread application and “safe choice” status is well-deserved. I wonder, though: will it ascend to Helvetica’s iconic status? More generally, given the abundance of digital faces, will any single face will ever be as dominant as Helvetica was in its prime?

Two. Also from Milwaukee, this sign made me laugh. My first thought was: hm, looks like someone failed to use a supported printer font. (My second thought was: crumb, I’m old.) If you also thought the parking sign was funny, you may appreciate “How did he do it?” from Mark Simonson.

The Hamilton Wood Type Museum, located in the former Hamilton Type Factory, is about three hours away from Madison and looks like it would make a great daytrip. (via the Veer blog, which also mentions Typeface, an upcoming documentary.)

Cinematypography at Swiss Legacy; cute.

I generally try to avoid paying attention in even-numbered years unless I have a ready supply of antiemetics, but I’m always happy to read about the competing goals of different typeface choices. Perhaps the most delightful thing that I read during my hiatus from posting here was this snarky riff on the typographic choices of presidential campaigns — and the questionable design goals each seem to aim for — from the always entertaining and quotable Hoefler & Frere-Jones Blog. (Note to typeface designers with weblogs: “mocking national politicians,” “type nerdery,” and “snarky riffs” become so much more powerful when combined, just like Voltron.)

Immediately preceding that post was a cute piece reflecting Hoefler’s delight that Barack Obama’s campaign is using H&FJ Gotham for some of their signage. As Gary Hustwit points out, Gotham’s aesthetic recalls Modernism and its attendant idealism — themes that resonate with Obama’s progressive base. (I suspect it is also resonates with voters who love flawless and absurdly expensive digital fonts with restrictive licenses.)

To my eye, Gotham is the finest typeface choice from any of these campaigns, both for its quality and for its rhetorical compatibility with the candidate. However, I note that Obama’s main wordmark does not use H&FJ faces. Rather, the ubiquitous Obama yard signs and bumper stickers employ two classic Eric Gill faces: Perpetua and Gill Sans. I am not sure if there is a similarly felicitous design goal behind this design choice. If I had to guess, though, I’d assume that this choice increases the campaign’s appeal among dog lovers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s some heinous logo work as spotted at the Madison airport today:

I can’t say anything about the bar fare ($7 for bottled macrobrews and $5 for french fries is far too steep for me), but this is certainly some of the würst treatment of blackletter I’ve ever seen. (Background info)