These are some creative alphabets I’ve been collecting. I’m posting them in particular as inspiration for the students in my Public Typography class this coming January-term, since making a found alphabet is their first assignment. You should try it too, it’s a fun exercise, as I discovered while making my ALPHABIKE. Click on a thumbnail to launch a larger gallery of all of them.
Which are your favorites?
Last weekend I was in San Diego for a friend’s wedding. The warm, sandy beaches and cool ocean breeze were a welcome relief to the frigid winds and blustery snow of New England.
One morning at the beach, having already explored the tidal pools, waded in the waves, and eaten a burrito picnic, I decided I should make sandcastles. Then a flash of inspiration struck – no, WAIT, I should make AMPERSANDcastles! This greatly amuses me. Sand is a very exciting medium, I must make a point to experiment with it more often.
How lucky I am, to have so many ampersands in my life!
My friends know me so well.
This was my breakfast today (courtesy of Tara):
And for dinner James made pizzas with the toppings shaped in ampersands. And there were ampersand cupcakes and cookies.
And this was dessert (courtesy of Victoria and Lydia):
If only I had made another ampersandwich today, I would have had a full day’s worth of ampersand meals – WHOA.
My life is so awesome and amazing and exhilarating and I love everything, especially my friends, and my family, and my Division III.
I present to you, a list of questions I’ve written throughout my notebook the past few months. I imposed a few of my questions on to some recent photos I’ve been playing around with, for purposes of visual exploration. The real question is: which of them will come to dominate my thesis? Who knows!
• When do fonts matter?
• Does it matter if the cafe sign down the street is in Papyrus?
• Does it matter if the Gaza protest poster or the abortion clinic handout are in Comic Sans?
• Who decides what is good design?
• What is good design?
• What is bad design?
• How is it possible to make a living designing for nonprofits and social causes?
• How have fonts been utilized in political and social movement throughout history?
• What is the price of free fonts?
• RSS feeds are a welcome tool to help navigate the proliferation of awesome things to read on the internet, but at what cost to the integral blog design? Are there any feed readers that preserve the integrity of a site’s design?
• Ralph Hexter’s State of the College presentation reminds me of IKEA, with it’s blue/yellow/white color scheme and use of Futura Bold – how would it have come across differently in Times New Roman? Or Helvetica? Or Curlz MT?
• Throughout human history, opinions have never been so easy to project as they are now, but how many people are really acting on them? Is commentary enough? How many people are really listening?
• Is graphic design art? Where is the line between graphic design and art? Who decides?
• How to teach to design to people who only have 5 fonts and Microsoft Word?
• How can I figure out what emotional and psychological effects posters have on people?
• Why is it important that things are well designed?
• When does an amateur become an expert? Where is the line drawn?
• What are the key tenets in the education of a graphic designer?
• When does a message become propaganda?
• When does increased awareness instigate behavioral change?
• What do I want people to think/react to when they see my designs?
• What does it mean for grassroots organizations now that being socially conscious is “hip”?
• What makes a font sustainable (historically, across mediums, across contexts, etc)?
• What is the emotional and psychological difference between UPPERCASE and lowercase letters?
• What would the world look like if all the big brands and corporations had to throw together their advertising last minute in Microsoft Word and all the graphic designers worked for small businesses and local nonprofits?
• What does it mean to be a designer in a community of non-designers?
• What is the role of a graphic designer in political and social movements?
• What is the process of turning citizens into designers?
• What does seeing fine print at the bottom of a poster do to your perception of it? (Adds legitimacy?)
• What is it with nonprofits and condensed gothic all-caps sans serifs lately? Seriously.
These are some of the questions I’m exploring. There are many more questions brewing. Do you have any answers for me? Or just more questions?
(As usual, you can click on the thumbnails to view the images larger.)
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