the mehallo blog. beta.

Behind every well-made font is, typically, an obsessive individual who is out to make the world a beautiful place. And individuals, human beings, can be rather screwy. And here’s a book (now in paperback) about all the screwiness.

Simon Loxley’s Type: The Secret History of Letters blows the lid off of William Caslon’s wicked right cross; Stanley Morison and the Wardes; Frederic Goudy’s tarnished shining star, M.F.Benton’s ulcers and what really happened with John Baskerville’s dead body. And Eric Gill, religious sex junkie. Don’t even know where to start with that.

If you don’t think type is anything more than what’s on the font menu, stay away from this book. Because it’ll drag you into a world of intrigue, ego and dalliances with God and dog.

(Okay, that was a good sentence, but truth be told, the dog stuff isn’t in this book. You’ll need other sources for that)

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

Photo composition by mehallo for Agfa Monotype, 2000

seeds
Mike Parker’s been in the news lately, mostly about the origins of Times New Roman. [Read more →]

Tags: cool finds, design, design history, education, fonts, thoughts, typography by steve
4 comments  . . .   

Lyon’s Coffee Shop, San Bruno, CA 1962. Found via Googie Art.

I grew up around Googie Architecture. It was just there. Space age-looking buildings, funky decor and rocks in the walls. Lots of rocks. Flintstones-like, but where the Jetson’s were running the quarry.

The 24 hour Lyon’s in San Bruno (see above) was the high school hangout. Long weird nights. In college, those weird nights spread to the other Lyon’s in San Mateo, San Carlos and Daly City. Denny’s was the alternative.

The style’s roots can be traced back to Frank Lloyd Wright and Tallesin West. Architect John Lautner designed the first Googie structure in 1949 and it was panned by critics. The firm of Armet and Davis designed most of the rest. [Read more →]

Tags: cool finds, design, design history, fonts, thoughts, typography by steve
3 comments  . . .   

Snapped these while in Reno a few weeks back. Love 1950s vernacular typography, I’ve built an entire font family around this.

Drove the guy at the motel front desk crazy with my flash.

A really nice drug dealer tried to sell me his wares.

I’m not being sarcastic, he was really, really nice.

Took me a long moment before I realized what he was up to.

Tags: cool finds, design, design history, fonts, photography, thoughts, typography by steve
4 comments  . . .   

‘The rapid development of media technology and the more gradual pace of human evolution is the notion of context instability.’ –Brian Southwell

Or in short, we’re not built to handle everything that is thrown at us today. Even sentences like that one.

As someone who often works with complexity – and when needed, simplicity – I value the importance of putting both in their respective places. Here’s a link to a helpful article written by Leo Babauta.

The photo is of a cookie fortune my wife gave me. It’s been posted at the top of my computer monitor since we’d first met.

Tags: thoughts by steve
1 comment  . . .   

If you’ve been following Eddie Izzard on Twitter, you’ll find he’s been really having fun with an iPhone, Google Maps and Twitpics.

And today, it looks like he’s in Cardiff.

Last week, amongst the pigs.

Ohhh, them ‘Crazy names of England’

Connectivity baby!

Tags: cool finds, thoughts by steve
2 comments  . . .   

Before

After

I love good information graphics. And bad information graphics make my eyes bleed.

Check out this redesign by Robert Palmer (and strong letter to Rep. John Boehner) of a recent visual attack on the Democratic Health Plan.

This is an excellent example as to why graphic designers (well trained graphic designers) can do a lot more than just push buttons on a computer. Or make a logo look nice. Good graphic design is about good communication – and can be world changing.

(That’s my soapbox for the day. Thank you for reading.)

Found via Twitter.com/angelaglenn

Tags: cool finds, design, education, illustration, thoughts by steve
7 comments  . . .   

Photographic Quaker Oats advertisement, 1897

I always thought the Quaker Oats guy was Benjamin Franklin.

He actually started as a printer’s cut – clip art, in today’s terms – that was selected to go on the Oats packaging to show ‘purity.’ Quakers always looked pure, let’s sell some oats with that in mind.

Benjamin Franklin was really smart, not quite pure though.

Tags: art, cool finds, culinary, design history, education, photography, thoughts by steve
3 comments  . . .   

PSFK takes a look at the new interiors for Starbuck’s great brand experiment, 15th Avenue E Coffee and Tea. Feels a smidgen like Peet’s, the other high end coffee house chain that used to own Starbucks.

Tags: cool finds, culinary, design, thoughts by steve
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The Sacramento Bee redesign, as posted on Font Bureau’s Facebook page. Fonts used include Benton Sans, Miller, Miller Daily and Miller Headline

A few years back, I was the art director for a reincarnation of The Sacramento Bee’s long time rival, The Sacramento Union.

In this version, The Union was reimagined as a magazine. We did just a handful of issues, the design concept was: ‘newspaper in magazine’ format  . . . [Read more →]

Tags: fonts, publication design, thoughts, typography by steve
2 comments  . . .   

Good graphic designers are trained to do amazing things in the realm of communication. And many clients just see the surface: make me a logo, I like yellow, so you should use yellow.

This article really nails it:

How to (and not to) work with a designer by Daniel Will-Harris

(Nails it so well, I’ve posted it as a link as part of the Manifesto at my website)

Tags: design, education, thoughts by steve
Comments Off on What to expect from a graphic designer