More tunes from ISO50.

Scott Hansen over at ISO50 has dropped another playlist. I'm preparing for a month or so of heavy rotation ...

Saturday morning with Futura

My five year old daughter and I typed out a few lines this morning. She specced the font and colors. (I have to admit I was happy when she was dismissive of all the scripts) When I couldn't resist my impulse to do some kerning, she said, "no Dad. Leave it." You're right, kid. It's good to go as is.

Kick Out The Jams

If I could stop listening to Scott Hansen's playlists, I would. Going on 9 days now. Perfect work music. Enjoy.

A sampler

While I was listening to to some killer tunes (see previous post) I was also cranking out a good deal of work—to include the premiere issue of At Home. Some serious updating will be happening on my site soon. But for now, here's a smattering of work from the last few months. A feature spread from Gulfshore Business, a spread and a department from At Home and a poster for local musician, Rift.

Don't call it a comeback.

My last update was August 14th? That's just sad. Well, chances are that my choices for the 10 albums of the year were getting some heavy rotation while I could've been updating my blog. A couple of these actually dropped in late 2008, but I played them ad nauseum throughout 09—sue me. Oh, These are in no particular order. Enjoy.

Fu Manchu - Signs of Infinite Power

The Mars Volta - Octahedron

Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

Sigur Ros - Meo suo vio spilum endalaust

M. Ward - Hold Time

Ladytron - Velocfero

Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree

Built To Spill - There Is No enemy

Los Campesinos - We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

Never say never ...

Ever had your mind made up that you just do not like a particular font, and there was no real justification for your disdain? Well, for a while now, I've been particularly harsh on Optima. I swore that if I could avoid using it in any of my work, I would. It always looked a bit awkward and "horsey" to me. But the other day while doing some photo research for the mag, I came across an interesting picture. It was a label for a wine bottle that immediately grabbed my attention. It was simple and clean, with beautifully set type, and it was set in ... wait for it ... Optima.

It was such a great use of the font and it worked so well within the context of the label, I had to find out who designed it. So, I got my google on and after about 30 seconds I found the winery, Ridge Vineyards. I wasn't turning up anything for the design though. After about 10 more minutes of searching I thought I'd drop Ridge Vineyards and email inquiring about the label; who designed it, when it was designed, etc. Literally five minutes later, I received an email from Kathy Martinich at the winery. She let me know that the label was designed in 1962 by James Robertson of Yolla Bolly Press. She was kind enough to send over the original design along with a memorial piece for James Robertson from their newsletter. 1962?! I had it in mind that this was a more recent design. But, most of the post World War II designers liked their stuff clean, a la Massimo Vignelli, (Don't know who that is? For the love of Pete, click that link.) and this design is an outstanding example of that. Unfettered, with a great use of space, color, and yes, typography.

So, I stand corrected. What can I say? I had only seen Optima used badly and it skewed my opinion. Many thanks to Kathy at Ridge Vineyards for sending over the label and letting me know about James Robertson. Next time I might not be so quick to write off a font—except maybe Papyrus.