the mehallo blog. beta.

I don’t buy a calendar anymore.

Because, like clockwork, a super cool one will arrive in the mail; typically a bit after the New Year has arrived.

For the past 15 years, Thomas Krug has been mailing me an incredible calendar. It often arrives in a large box and it always dazzles. Elaborate printing techniques, special inks, die cuts – a mesmerizing trip of photography and design.

Thomas is the owner of the Traffic design agency in Winnenden, Germany. And his firm’s self-designed calendar is one helluva promotional item. [Read more →]

Tags: cool finds, fonts, mehallo merchandise, photography, thoughts, typography by steve
3 comments  . . .   

Alice Savoie’s Capucine

Here’s a great article by Gerry Leonidas over at I Love Typography.

Tags: cool finds, design history, education, fonts, thoughts, typography by steve
1 comment  . . .   

‘Arrighi was here’ button by George Abrams

Any current drawing of the type work of Nicholas Jenson (1420-80) that includes an Italic is doing a little fudging. Since (like Trajan and lowercase), Italic wasn’t quite around yet when Jenson was making type.

Typically the work of Ludovico Arrighi (1475–1527) is adapted as the companion font to Jenson – as the Italic.

Monotype did this with its Jenson-influenced Centaur – and Adobe Jenson sports an Arrighi-influenced italic. [Read more →]

Tags: cool finds, design history, flom, thoughts, typography by steve
2 comments  . . .   

‘Is there a way to know what fonts will work together? Building a palette is an intuitive process, but expanding a typographic duet to three, four, or even five voices can be daunting.’ –H&FJ

‘how do I pick the right font?’
. . .  is the most common question I’m asked in my type courses. And my answers aren’t usually simple. I liken it to picking the right suit, tie and shoes.

What handbag will work best, nail polish, lipstick, gloss or none, which eye liner will simply look great  . . .

One learns by doing. [Read more →]

Tags: cool finds, design, education, fashion, fonts, thoughts, typography by steve
1 comment  . . .   

Poster by graphic designer Michael Ciancio, available thru his website.

Found via Apartment Therapy

Tags: cool finds, fonts, thoughts, typography by steve
Comments Off on More characters!

Here’s eight simple ways. Article at AisleOne.

Tags: cool finds, education, thoughts, typography by steve
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‘Typography is what language looks like.’ –Ellen Lupton

Great collection of typography quotes (with article), collected by Jacci Howard Bear. Go here for more.

And
Check out as8: Alessandro Segalini’s collection of quotes on typography here.

Image found via Lead Graffiti

Tags: design history, education, thoughts, typography by steve
Comments Off on Typographic rhetoric 3

‘Almost all human reasoning about facts, decisions, opinions, beliefs, and values is no longer considered to be based on the authority of absolute Reason, but instead, is seen to be intertwined with emotional elements, historical evaluations, and pragmatic motivations. In this sense, the new rhetoric considers the persuasive discourse not as a subtle, fraudulent procedure, but as a technique of ‘reasonable’ human interaction, controlled by doubt and explicitly subject to extra logical conditions.’ -Umberto Eco, Italian Scholar and Semiotician

Here’s a great article at Mert TOL on using type to  . . .  manipulate and control.

Photo by mehallo

Tags: cool finds, thoughts, typography by steve
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‘Ten steps to becoming the designer you want to be’

Thinking about being a designer?

Here’s a great article at the GOOD site by Laura Seargeant Richardson – go here and read up. There’ll be a quiz later.

Tags: cool finds, design, education, thoughts by steve
Comments Off on An open letter to the next generation of designers

Click for larger version/jump.

Plus,
Here’s their All-Nighters series on insomnia, ‘a nuisance, a disease, a curse, an opportunity or even a gift.’

I just know from Twitter and Facebook that most of the United Kingdom is waking up when I’m typically designing stuff.

And this hour we lost this weekend  . . .  total BITCH.

Tags: cool finds, thoughts, typography by steve
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I like charts like this. It’s not perfect, but them bars are going in the right direction. More details here.

Tags: cool finds, education, thoughts by steve
Comments Off on Recovery