the mehallo blog. beta.

‘Move over fun, there’s a new sheriff in town, and his name is Typo Tofu. Typo Tofu is also the funnest way to stay healthy and learn to read at the same time. Quite the double whammy.’ -Michael Hines

Designed by Uqam design student Jean-Maxime Landry. Details here and here.

Tags: cool finds, culinary, design, education, typography by steve
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‘They are traveling the country  . . .  join us for the day as they work on producing a unique keepsake with the Museum’s presses and materials – and then have a talk’

This Saturday, April 10, Santa Cruz-based book artists Peter and Donna Thomas will be at the International Printing Museum in Carson, CA. Details here.

More about the Thomases here.

Peter and Donna Thomas’ Ditty of First Desire (2007), a ‘cootie-catcher’ shaped book – with paintings of nudes – showcasing the poem by Federico Garcia Lorca

Tags: art, cool finds, design, education, events, publication design by steve
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‘Kiss my ass! – or, Get stuffed!’ Rudolf Koch c. 1929

Last weekend, I was a guest blogger over at Boxed in Design. Did a write up on the incredible work of lettering artist Rudolf Koch (1876-1934).

Read it here.

Tags: design history, education, fonts, typography by steve
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In my intermediate typography course at the California Art Institute Sacramento, students tackle CD packaging design – with a slight twist. Inspired by Project Runway, I like to put limitations on the work to force the student to engage the project where inventiveness will lead to unusual results.

If I could get them to do everything in 24 hours, with Tim Gunn checking in, I’d try that too.

project limits
In this case, students have to work with a band (or recording artist) that they do not know anything about or (preferably) simply do not like. The more they delve into a genre foreign to them, the more interesting the results have been.

Pictured is student Isla Waite’s interpretation of the Megadeth album Endgame. Her decision to reimagine the lyrics into typographic layouts (inspired by the lyrics’ subject matter) led to a unique interpretation of the traditional stylings of Heavy Metal.

Megadeth: Endgame

Tags: design, education, music, typography by steve
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Opening April 8, 2010 at the Bayside Church in Granite Bay, CA is ‘From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Bible in America,’ an exhibition featuring five pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Also on hand will be some rare Bibles including (reportedly) an original by Gutenberg.

More information here. SacBee article here.

Found via Susan Poirier

Tags: cool finds, design history, education, exhibitions by steve
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I Love Typography takes a look at the holdings of the library of the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz. More than just Bibles.

Article here.

Tags: cool finds, design history, education, fonts, typography by steve
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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
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‘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
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‘Nick Martens digs into the pages of the great dictionary that chronicles the history and development of the English language, and unearths some typographic gems.’

Great article about obscure typographic references in the Oxford English Dictionary. Read it here.

Photo found via emdot

Tags: cool finds, design history, education, fonts, typography by steve
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‘MoMA’s announced what might be its boldest acquisition ever. And it didn’t even cost anything: The ‘@’ symbol is now a part of the museum’s permanent design collection.’

Article here.

Pictured above, the @ symbol from Goudy’s Bertham font.

Tags: cool finds, design history, education, typography by steve
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‘This project has a dual goal of documenting the almost-lost skill of creating metal fonts and of capturing the personality and work process specifically of practitioner the late Canadian graphic artist Jim Rimmer (1931–2010)’

Richard Kegler’s long-delayed documentary, Making Faces: Metal Type in the 21st Century, has just secured just enough funding for completion.

For more about the film, go here and here.

Rimmer and Kegler

Tags: cool finds, design history, education, fonts, typography by steve
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