Summer Hiatus

As some of you may have noticed, my posts have been becoming infrequent here. Because of a very busy summer, I have decided to take a summer hiatus from posting on my blog. I have enjoyed posting links to things that I like, but it also requires a time commitment that I cannot maintain through the summer.

The most exciting reason for my busy summer is that I am attending a Type Design Workshop at the Basel School of Design in Basel, Switzerland! I will be learning type design as well as getting a feel for the city of Basel.

Also, my wife and I are relocating to a new house that will have room for my Vandercook printing press! I am excited to get the press up and printing. And speaking of printing (and a little shameless promotion): make sure to keep your eye on my artist page at Keep Calm Gallery - I have a couple new prints in the works that will be up in the next few weeks.

I will leave you with a few links of websites that I visit for inspiration on a daily basis: Grain Edit, We Love Typography, Swiss Miss, Coudal, Draplin.

Enjoy your summer and all the best!

Build Your Own Letterpress

Want to get into letterpress printing without a huge investment? Try building your own press!

Travel Photochroms

The Library of Congress has started adding their collection of travel photochrom photographs to their Flickr account. So great!

via Coudal.

All-American Space Fleet

Skelly Gas company put out a set of cards in the 1950's about the soon-to-true
All-American Space Fleet. I love the imagination of this set and also the "helpful advice" telling children to be safe and never run with sharp objects from the trustworthy oil company...

via Coudal.

Restored Tempo Matador

If I had $110,000 laying around, I would seriously consider buying this beauty. What an amazing truck and what an amazing restoration!

Pulp Paperback Diorama Photographs

Thomas Allen constructs dioramas using figures cut from the covers of old pulp paperbacks and then photographs them. Great stuff!

Grafica Fidalga

Grafica Fidalga, a printing press in São Paulo, Brazil, makes posters on a 1929 German letterpress using hand-carved wooden letters. Seriously awesome!

via CoolHunting.

East Germany Up Close and Personal

West German photographer Karlheinz Jardner took fascinating photos during a trip through East Germany in the spring of 1990, capturing a world that would soon disappear forever.

Book Colophon Imprints

Aaron again links up a great set of imprint logos from the colophons of old paperback books.

Love is Sweet...

Wow. I wish I had the patience and skill to do something similar to this amazing piece by Julene Harrison.

Cold War Images

A truly strange and interesting set of images and advertisements from the Cold War Era.

Common Ground

A photographic essay showing farmland turning into suburbia and the connection between the people and the land: Common Ground.

Typographic World Map

I love maps. I love type. This Typographic World Map fulfills both quite nicely.

Nuclear Slide Rules

Such innocuous wheels that neatly compute death and destruction: Nuclear Slide Rules.

RIT Design Collections

Rochester Institute of Technology has an amazing collection of design work from the 1950's to the 1980's. I would LOVE to spend a day perusing through it all!

Airline Logos

Aaron tipped me off to a great collection of airline logos. I especially love the old Air France logo that is above.

Is This Your Luggage

A mysterious person buys long-lost luggage, photographs the contents, and then tries to find its owner.

Is this your luggage?

Type Nesting

See! Type is useful even to animals!

Type Nesting.

Venn Diagrams

Good buddy Frank Chimero has started a new series of Venn diagrams that you simply must check out.

Wood Type Web Museum

Unicorn Graphics has a very nice web museum of wood type and specimen books. See H&FJ review their favorites here.

Wall Street Journal Article on Comic Sans

Love it or hate it, the Wall Street Journal has written an article about Comic Sans. Learn about the history, the designer, and the backlash against the typeface.

Emily Haines on Writing in Buenos Aires

Emily Haines (of Broken Social Scene and Metric) talks about getting out of her environment and finding inspiration in Argentina. Really fantastic.

Tone Matrix

Andre Michelle has created (among many other awesome things) a great sinewave synthesizer triggered by an ordinary 16-step sequencer called ToneMatrix.

What exactly that means, I couldn't tell you, but the music and fun that it creates is fantastic!

TypeCuts - Andrea Tinnes

I came across Andrea Tinnes type designs today via WeLoveTypography and I cannot contain my enthusiasm for her work! Her custom work for the Eastern Columbia building is most certainly my favorite as well as her design for a Optima replacement, Viceroy.

All of her work is brilliant and makes me so very jealous!

Continue to Make Your Own Path

Some shameless self-promotion here:

I just finished printing another big set of "Make Your Own Path" prints that are now for sale at Keep Calm Gallery!

Each print is hand letterpressed on a different topographic map making each print unique. I hope you like it!

We Love Typography

From the creator of one of the best type sites on the internet, ILoveTypography, comes another great site: WeLoveTypography.

Contributed to by some of the best type people on the net, think of it as FFFFound for all things type, typography, lettering, & signage.

A new daily source of typographic inspiration!

Keep On Trucking!

Trucks + Type.

Dieter Rams - Cold War Modern

Dieter Rams - Cold War Modern seen on viaFrank.

Ramp House

The Ramp House is a project which tries to reconsider and redefine the living space as a "skateable habitat" - awesome!

Rare FSA Color Photographs

The Farm Security Administration was best documented by amazing black & white photographs but a few color images were captured and they bring a whole new life to these images of the American depression and war effort.

The Library of Congress' Flickr page has a ton more color photos - so great!

Soviet Posters

I am always a sucker for Soviet posters and this online collection is great!

YTL Residence, Kuala Lumpur

Wow. This home is amazing. YTL Residence, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.

Missouri Chinese

A little bit of fame and hometown pride for little Springfield, Missouri USA: the New York Times recently wrote an article about Springfield Style Cashew Chicken.

No, I do not think this is real Chinese food (I can speak from experience) but yes, I still eat it and love it!

Spy Box

Ever wonder what it was like to be a parcel going through the mail? Tim Knowles did and created a parcel with a digital camera inside and called it Spy Box

Visualizing the New York Times

Love info graphics? They you will love this really impressive visualization of the New York Times.

Polaroids on Murketing.com

I am late posting this, but my Vernacular Typography Polaroids were recently the "Flickr Set of the Month" on The Journal of Murketing. Thanks to Rob and Tom!

Type Specimen Books

Flickr user :Nike has a seriously enviable collection of Type Specimen Books.

The Periodic Table of Typefaces

The Periodic Table of Typefaces.

Keep Calm and Parody

Everyone seems to be making parodies of the classic British WWII poster "Keep Calm and Carry On" these days.

Honestly, it is getting a bit silly - as good friend Frank Chimero points out with his poster above.

Skylab Letterpress

Check out this great video of a Heidelberg Windmill in action at Skylab Letterpress in Kansas City, Missouri.