The Sacramento International Film and Music Festival is underway – and this Friday night, my students’ type film (above) will be shown as part of the Art Institute’s Student Showcase, 6 p.m., July 30 at The Crest.
Festival details here.
Official It’s Typography website here.
‘the stuff we’re really made of’
King Corn (2007) is a look at the very, very powerful corn industry in the United States. And how corn is in EVERYthing.
Trailer above, watch the entire film via iTunes.
Official site here. And here’s a previous post on the subject.
Found via Shandi Pierzina
‘For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What went wrong – and how we can fix it.’
Great article in Newsweek. Read it here.
I have my own take, which has to do with how difficult it actually is to be creative. How society does its best to discourage and strip creativity from us so we can be good worker bees. Sit down, shut up and do your job.
what is creativity
As the article mentions: ‘To be creative requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result).’
Today, divergent thinking is often discouraged – but if it does take place, it can be so divergent, it can’t be implemented as a convergent – or coherent – plan.
And at the college level, I’m at ground zero teaching this stuff.
Sometimes it creates wonders, sometimes it only goes halfway. Other times, it’s so frightening to attempt something new . . . creativity finds itself at a standstill. The work veers back into mediocrity. Because that’s safe.
Pictured above: The incredible work of Graham Roumieu, visit his portfolio site here. Twas more creative than the trite crayon flag that came with the Newsweek article. Found via swissmiss. Article found via Adam Helweh.
‘The 40-hour workweek was born in the industrial age, when people made widgets in factories. The modern world is a much different place than the one we used to work in, and smart individuals are discovering that time doesn’t equal productivity.’ -Everett Bogue
Was in the North Bay recently and picked up a copy of the North Bay Bohemian. Great article by Leilani Clark on simplifying one’s life.
Read it here.
Resources mentioned include NEF’s 21 hours report, the books Plenitude: The New Economics of Truth Wealth by Juliet Schor, The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard and blogs by Tammy Strobel and Everett Bogue – plus Shareable.net.
Above: Illustration by Yamauchi Kazuaki; which had nothing to do with the article, just liked it a tad better than the stock image they posted. Found via Pomegranita.
‘Renowned French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand and director Luc Besson just released ‘Home’ – a documentary on climate change . . .’ –Cult of Green
Narrated by Glen Close. Beautiful cinematography, like one of those 365 earth from above books. Shocking statistics, good solutions. Entire film available free on YouTube.
Click the above image to watch/jump.
Official website here. Watch it as a double feature with Avatar and this little ditty.
The classic Sesame Street Typewriter Guy. From 1978.
‘Tipoteca Italiana is a private foundation that was founded in 1995 to advance printing knowledge and preserve venerable printing technologies. Its founder, Silvio Antiga, a 65-year-old printer who owns a printing firm in the Veneto region, has collected more than 20 vintage presses and typesetting machines, along with hundreds of wood and metal type ‘fonts”
From T Magazine, Steven Heller looks at the incredible Tipoteca (tif) and where the term ‘font’ comes from.
I haven’t been there, but a friend visited several years ago – and brought me a whole bunch of really cool ephemera.
Found via Campbell BrownKorbel
‘I created this site as part of my graduate thesis at Fort Hays State University in an effort to share with others what I have learned on my own.’
Dominic Flask’s Design is History website – featuring highlights from design history.
Found via Grain Edit
‘Baskerville, a bad asskerville’
This spring, my Digital Typography students set out to make a short film about type history.
The class – held at The Art Institute of California Sacramento – was set up like a working design studio – with myself as ‘hands off creative director.’ All students had a role, from art direction to project management, web design, editing and production.
At one point, songsmith John Slingerland threw a party at his home – and invited a few unwitting guests – just to record the background vocals for the film’s gets stuck in your head musical number.
And, featured in the credits, a very early beta version of Jeanne Texte – which I had to prep for them as my homework assignment.
It was a fun quarter; this was a great team to work with, their enthusiasm snagged everyone in their handmade typographic web.
Above, Das – Conduct of War, a cool clogged up font by Stephen Faustina.
And here’s a link to some free fonts (below) available thru FontFabric.
And from The Font Feed, here’s a great article on what the deal is with Free Fonts – and why they’re not always totally free.
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