Design by Humans, my favorite t-shirt store of the moment, is celebrating their 2 year anniversary. In internet years, that’s about 20, and they’re celebrating with a huge sale! The sale goes on through 7/26, and now that I’ve purchased everything I wanted I’m happy to direct as many people to their store as I can. I don’t know where else you’re going to get a beautiful, human-designed, comfortable t-shirt for $5.
While they mark their birthday with a sale, I thought I would mark their birthday by taking a look at their logo and packaging, both of which struck me as quite clever.
The logo is simple, capitalized type distinguished mainly by the 2 dots above the U in “human.” It is sometimes paired with a mark as well: the same dotted U, tilted slightly and placed in a circle. The circle is integral to the design - suddenly the glyph becomes a happy face! This smiling human character hidden within the mechanical, minimalist type adds a playful touch that matches the quirky humor of the name; It’s like a little wink to the person viewing it.
Design by Humans and Yogen Fruz – friends forever, or a lawsuit waiting to happen?
While I am a fan of the umlaut as happy-face in the logo, as clever as it is, it’s not exactly unique. Yogen Fruz, a chain of frozen yogurt shops that recently started popping up in my area, uses a very similar design. I’m not sure which design came first (probably Yogen Fruz, as they’ve been around since 1992), and I do think they’re both excellent logos (the umlaut fits well with the vaguely Euro/German sound of “Yogen Fruz”). Let’s just hope this doesn’t become a trend.
I’m ambivalent about the typeface used in the DBH logo. Apparently all-caps Gotham is the new black. Gotham has become the go-to font among graphic designers ever since some presidential candidate started using it. In this logo design, Gotham does what it does best – it makes the type look clean and fresh. However, I can’t help wondering if all this Gotham we’re seeing is going to start looking dated in a few years (I love Meta as much as the next guy, but its ubiquity in the 90s makes it feel a bit behind the times). And while I agree with the masses that Gotham is a beautiful, impeccably well-crafted typeface, on principle I’ve sworn to use it as little as possible. Like Helvetica, it is simple and perfect. Like Helvetica it articulates clean design and clear messaging. And like Helvetica, I will never ever use it unless a client specifically asks for it. I figure there’s enough of it out there in the world already without me adding more.
Design by Humans packaging – your t-shirt says hello.
When you order from Design by Humans, as I recommend you do, they send your shirts in a black plastic envelope with a big clear window in the shape of the smiling umlaut. The packaging is simple and clean, and best of all it lets the design of the product – the tshirt inside – really shine. What a great way to show off your product! Anyone who sees it will have an instant sense of what this company is about. As you can see, I bought a shirt with a bird speaking in Futura on it – because that gives people an instant sense of what I’m about.
So keep it up DBH! Great work so far, and many more years ahead!
I’m a big fan of the new Delta logo. They were able to simplify, refine, and refresh their image while still holding onto the core of the old design. What I didn’t realize about the new logo, however, was it’s connection to the company’s logotype throughout the 60s and 70s.
Connecting through Atlanta, I noticed the big red “Fly Delta Jets” sign and immediately recognized the inspiration for the new Delta type. I remember seeing this sign years ago and thinking how weird it was that it had no connection to the logo. Turns out, Delta has had so many logos that I was just thinking about the wrong era. Delta’s logos from 1959 through the early 80s use a very similar sans. None of the old logos are a perfect match for the slightly awkward, industrial letters of the sign, but they are a whole lot closer than any of the logos I remembered.
Fly Delta Jets sign at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta
Delta's logo, 2007–present
The new letters are a sleek refinement of the old – keeping the connection to the brand’s history while trading gawkiness for a style that is more professional, if slightly more generic.
Posted by: Brendan on Oct 30th, 2008 Filed under: Design, Type
I was in Philadelphia this past weekend, visiting friends and meeting with potential clients. One of the things I miss most about living in a city is the history that you see just walking down the street. Every building has its own story and its own past. Where I live (i.e., the burbs) everything is new, sterile, and agonizingly spotless. So while I was in Philly I tried to capture a little of what I miss through images of found type.
The huge C.A. Rowell type is elegant in its own right, but what really drew me to this building was the faintly visible signage behind it. The history of the building’s ownership and function is written right there on its side.
In the middle of the 20th Century, a lot of the industry that Philadelphia was thriving on dried up and went elsewhere. Wandering through the neighborhoods outside Center City, the impact of that economic shift can be blatantly apparent.
This feels more like a concert flyer for a grunge band than a church, but grunge type that doesn’t feel like a cliche is so rare that I had to include it.
Right above the Dunkin’ Donuts I used to hit on my daily commute, this is the only sample from Center City. It’s art deco at its most flamboyant, though it does feel out of place sandwiched between the plain bricks above and the tacky retail below. The air vents (i think that’s what they are) on the left and right feel a little bit goatse though…
Posted by: Brendan on Oct 18th, 2008 Filed under: Design, Type
Every now and then, I’ll encounter a font that feels extremely fresh, modern, and “now” – then I’ll look it up and discover that it’s decades old. When I was first learning about type and design, Gill Sans and Peignot caught me off-guard that way. 
Recently, this happened to me again with Dante, a gorgeous text face that mixes modern elements with old-fashioned ones in interesting ways. Dante – which I’d expected was a fairly new, digitally designed font – was in fact designed for metal type in 1955.
Dante was used to set the text in Neal Stephenson’s latest book, Anathem. I just finished the book, and found it fantastic – not only did it introduce me to a lot of ideas and philosophies that were knew to me, but it also introduced me to a great typeface.
The roughly 3,000 pages of Stephenson’s last set of books, the Baroque Cycle, were set in Baskerville – a lovely typeface that roughly matched the historical period in which the books take place. 
But I’ve been noticing a lot of Baskerville in book design for the last few years, and I was happy for the change of pace Dante provided. The mixture of old and new in Dante is a thoughtful choice for the text – the world in which Anathem is set combines modern society with monastic life.
Overall, Dante’s blend of curves and angles works very nicely. The ae ligature, which gets a lot of use in Anathem, is perhaps the font’s most beautiful example of this. But in my mind, Dante’s greatest feature is the killer spiked serif on the top arm of the E and F. This prominent thorn is repeated – toned down and sometimes sideways – in many of the lowercase glyphs.
Some of Dante’s characters, like the g and R, feel a bit overly poetic compared to the rest of the font. Others, like the A and S, feel a little more mechanical. However, after reading almost 1000 pages set in Dante, I can’t even decide if I dislike this inconsistency or if I appreciate its quirkiness.
If I’d seen Dante before reading Anathem, I hadn’t noticed it. But I’m definitely going to keep my eyes peeled for it now. I can definitely think of a lot of perfect applications for it – even if none of them fit projects in my current pipeline. However, if I ever write a giant speculative fiction novel about monks and parallel worlds, at least I’ll have the right font for it.
More about Dante’s history
