Found Type – Philadelphia

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…

Featured Font – Dante

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

Some GOOD Sheet

Lately I’ve really been enjoying “the GOOD sheet,” a free publication I’ve been picking up at Starbucks. It’s a nicely designed, icon-laden, info-dense, little square of newsprint. Each week, they take on a different politically charged issue with the goal of getting people better informed before they cast their votes next month. The best part is that the “just the facts” approach makes it – as far as i can tell – pretty unbiased. So far issues have included health care, gas prices, and immigration.

The GOOD Sheet on Immigration

Graphics
Visually, these are a lot of fun. The layouts are filled with playful icons and clever infographics – for example, they depict the path to a US Green Card as a gameboard or labyrinth. Most of the icons are silhouettes, and the simplicity works well. However, there isn’t quite a consistent style among them – either they were created independently by different staff designers, or some of them are stock designs.

To a certain extent, GOOD relies a bit too heavily on current design trends. The use of solid printer’s colors (cyan, magenta, and yellow) and overprinting (that semi-transparent layering of two different colors, as in the circle on the map) are both becoming a little overused. But on the whole, the graphics are witty, informative, and attractive.

I give GOOD a lot of credit for avoiding many of the usual pitfalls that publications fall into. Photos are used sparingly and tastefully, text is well organized and readable, and layouts are well thought out. To top it off, I haven’t yet seen a single gradient or drop-shadow. These days, that’s downright daring.

Typography
GOOD appears to use Benton Sans for their primary type system. I think this is a great choice. It’s a viable alternative to common choices like Franklin Gothic or Akzidenz Grotesk, and it has a kind of newsy chunkiness that adds an air of authority. A redrawing of Morris Fuller Benton’s 1903 News Gothic, the typeface also has a distinct “American-ness” perfectly suited to the content of the publication.

Immigration infographics

Marketing
As far as I can tell, the GOOD Sheet is a temporary publication to cease after the November election. Until that time, it’s only available at Starbucks – but at least it’s free, so even if you don’t like their coffee you can at least grab a copy. The sheet seems a little heavy on the advertising, but as it’s a free publication that doesn’t much bother me. They have to cover the production cost somehow.

The Sheet’s goal (aside from, you know, informing the public) appears to be getting visitors to the website. From there, they can subscribe to the magazine (in print or online) or make donations to the non-profits that GOOD partners with. Starbucks, for their part, appears more concerned with larger issues in the community and nation.

But is anyone actually noticing? So far, the only people I’ve actually seen notice it are myself and another designer I work with. They only have a few copies in the stand at any given time, but they never seem to run out. Maybe GOOD’s covers just aren’t compelling enough to someone who isn’t interested in the graphics. Or maybe people just want their coffee without the fuss.

Overall
GOOD does a great job of presenting information in a clear and interesting way. The graphics are clever and the design is clean – together, they actually make a cheaply-printed sheet of newsprint feel classy. Further applause for making it free – I know I’ll be picking up the next one.

-Brendan

Rocdove Site Launched!

As of this very moment I’ve finished uploading the Rocdove website. Rocdove is a small design studio – a hub for all of my freelance design and animation efforts. Please take some time, poke around, and let me know if you have any projects that need a savvy designer or skilled animator.

True, the site may only be 10 minutes old, but I’ve already got a number of updates in the works. In addition to using this blog to post about interesting design finds and ideas, I’m planning to keep the content coming in other areas of the site as well. I’ve got more projects and some downloadable freebies in the queue, so stay tuned!

-Brendan