I’ve been making a point to ride my bike to make quick trips here and there, going to the library, book store, hardware store, etc. My point is manyfold. Don’t burn gasoline. Don’t pollute the air. Stay local. Exercise. Fresh air. Connect with our neighborhood and community in a way that an automobilized passerby cannot.

Today I made just such a trip to our hardware store. I love supporting the guys at the small shop, and they are always ready to help me find whatever I need. Always a pleasant experience. So, I got what I needed, and probably paid a premium over what I’d pay at Lowe’s or Home Depot. But, whatever. I’m supporting the local business. I was surprised, though, and kind of disappointed, when I saw that the loppers I bought were made in Taiwan. I’m wondering how much an oxymoron this makes my buying-intent.

Another entry for the “I’m not sure what to think about this” category.

Last week I was in the vast, wild, and sparsely populated lands of Alaska, where the air is crisp and moose roam free. Tonight my wife and I watched Manufactured Landscapes, a documentary film about Edward Burtynsky’s photography of quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, dams, and their implied impact on the environment and human life. Fascinating, heartbreaking, yet inspiring. See trailer on YouTube.

My wife thought of the clever title.

I was just sifting through some of my old design work and found this illustration I made right after I finished school four years ago. Oddly, and perhaps ironically, the design program that I was enrolled in didn’t offer any classes on typography. Thankfully, however, one of my teachers gave me A Type Primer which lit a typographic fire under my rear. I started doing studies like this one, trying to understand type through giving it weight and physicality in two-dimensional space.

I’m over 20 years late to comment on this, but I found it to be quite fascinating: Erik Spiekermann’s Post Mortem (PDF) article from Baseline Magazine (issue #7, 1985). There was a commission to develop a new corporate design program for the West German Post Office (Deutsche Bundespost). Spiekermann writes about design choices behind the new typeface, which, in the end, everyone loved — except for the Deutsche Bundespost administration for fear of ‘causing unrest’. So, they defaulted to stay with Helvetica. Boring!

Milton Glaser in 2004, from Short History and the Longer View:

Being a legend is an accomplishment that is hard won and sadly ephemeral, but being part of human kind’s desire to make useful and beautiful things links us to a glorious history.

…

What the Designer Ought to Be

Let the designer be bold in all sure things, and fearful in dangerous things; let him avoid all faulty treatments and practices. He ought to be gracious to the client, considerate to his associates, cautious in his prognostications. Let him be modest, dignified, gentle, pitiful, and merciful; not covetous nor an extortionist of money; but rather let his reward be according to his work, to the means of the client, to the quality of the issue, and to his own dignity.

Adapted from a 14th century document entitled “What A Surgeon Ought to Be.”

Richard Anwyl writes about Lou Dorfsman’s 35-feet wide and 8-feet tall typographic wall “Gastrotypographicalassemblage” designed and built in the 1960s, and how it was irreverently removed by new management 30 years later. This kind of reflects what I had pondered about in A Digital Future.

My brother-in-law, Erick Moser, is a graduate student at Saint Louis University studying historical theology. He needed a custom world map-rendering for a presentation he’s giving this week. He puts it in context:

“When discussing world history or modern Church history … the discussion most often tends to focus 1) only on North America and Western Europe or 2) if it includes the rest of the world it is only to show how these other elements have an effect on Western Europe and North America.

“Basically, our mental map often looks like [this map]; all the continents are present, but we don’t see them. This map shows how drastic such a view is. In other words, it brings to our consciousness the implicit assumptions we often have.”

Here’s the map, which is based on this original PDF (click it to zoom it):

• I Love Typography
  I love it! Without writing too much about it, I would like to mention that I won a free copy of The Complete Manual of Typography from iLT! Thanks John (for the book and the site)! I might also mention that I recently won a free copy of FontBook from Kirby Ferguson over at Goodie Bag — thanks again, Kirby!
• Alphabet City
  Jason Santa Maria recently went on a typography walking tour led by Tobias Frere-Jones of the venerable H&FJ type foundry of which he notes “There are few chances to be lead around such a historic city to look at interesting typography by someone so knowledgeable of craft and heritage.” Ain’t that the truth! I wish I could have been there.

Last night (Tuesday) Marta and I went to the Kentucky Center for the Arts to see and hear Maya Lin talk about her work. She is, of course, mostly known for designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. I knew little of her prior to her presentation, and I am thoroughly glad to have been exposed to her work. She brings together a beautiful and thoughtful balance of nature and modernism that I love. Read and see more.