Through Lines 148

This slow-burn second single New Order T-Shirt from The National’s forthcoming album ‘First Two Pages of Frankenstein’ took me a couple listens to get but the line “I keep what I can of you” got its hooks in me.

• This new series, Diaries of a Poster Curator (hi, Angelina) at Hyperallergic brings me much joy, especially given this first issue’s notable centering on the inimitable work of Amos Kennedy Jr. Doubles as a good primer for “what is a poster?”
• I’d never heard the term trained incapacity before but to me this sounds truly horrible and goes completely against how I suspect naturally curious generalists consider the world. If nothing else, it sounds like a boring existence.
• “The moment we cater our creativity to popular opinion is the precise moment we lose our freedom and autonomy.” Yup. Thanks for writing this Debbie.
• The Glaze tool being built by a group at the University of Chicago presents a first case study on preventing AI tools from so easily replicating the style of artists. I wonder how much a wack-a-mole problem this will turn into (or already is)?
• So, apparently the Milky Way is, um, pretty full. This gorgeous new image from NSF's NOIRLab team shows 3.32 billion celestial objects a massive composite.
• “Lack of undo actually increases the enjoyment. Things are at stake. Getting to the end of a drawing without undo is immensely rewarding. ” Mark Simonson gets it.
• Cat Stevens (Yusuf) covers George Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun in honor of the late Beatle’s 80th birthday.
• Optical alignment tricks for designers from Bjango.
• Infinite Mac. OS 9, a good vintage.

Notable Type Releases

• Dewey Decimal, not to be confused with H&Co’s Decimal, is a contemporary reimagining of a proportional typewriter style for the Friden Justowriter teleprinter called Documentary. Featuring a large x-height and wide apertures, it’s well-suited for lengthy settings such as books (and I guess blogs).
• The almost-brutalist Tempel Softland from Production Type is the rounded cousin of Tempel Grotesk. Its design evokes sci-fi novels and would work for album covers, movie posters, or packaging with ease.
• Fuerte Type’s Sakral is the all-points bulletin of serif typefaces with wickedly extended serifs and a high x-height giving it an usual almost Medieval flavor. It’s especially sharp in all caps settings.
• FontWerk’s new Hamster is everything you want in a color font. Or maybe not. But it’s colorful, weird, and c’mon… cheeky good fun!
• Cru from Colophon Foundry is one weight and seven widths. It’s up-front, direct, and takes the rigid limitations of wood type into a modern shell.
• Blast Foundry’s Silverknife and Silverspoon both graduated from Future Fonts as final releases filling the copperplate gothic slot of any type collection with a regular and condensed pairing.