Through Lines 259

I’m not at all familiar with Raynor Winn’s book The Salt Path, but the trailer for the film adaptation hits me right in the feels. And it took me a moment before I recognized Jason Isaacs (The White Lotus). No sign of if/when this might reach US screens sadly but it opens in the UK next weekend.

Art & Design

  • No one goes to the incredible lengths Armin and Bryony do when designing conference identities such as the Brand New Conference. The latest in Pittsburgh, PA is no exception and the deep dive on the conference identity design and production really brings it to life.
  • People still value, respect and enjoy the handmade, perhaps even more so now when digital imagery, on screen or output to paper, is so ubiquitous and often so bland. Screenprints: A History by Gill Saunders is obviously going on my reading wish list.
  • The 67th Quarterly Edition of Field Notes, Is a River Alive? marries the writing of author Robert Macfarlane with the art of Stanley Donwood, Radiohead’s unofficial sixth member. My packs just arrived and they’re gorgeous.
  • I noted the PBS documentary Mr. Polaroid a few weeks back, and the hour long film is now streaming in full.
  • TypeQuote from Andrew Boardman delivers a daily amuse-bouche of inspiration and through starters for designers and artists.

Type of Note

  • Highly architectural and shaped by lines and gradient-like repetition, Terrassa from Typotheque is structure and beauty combined. 16(!!) OpenType stylistic sets offer a lot of flexibility when coupled with Terrassa’s four expressive variable axes.
  • Blaze Type’s ultra-modern, sci-fi, square-shaped Quadro comes in five variable weights and six widths and comfortably fits the bill for branding communications, packaging — and would look great on the side of a rocket.
  • Each of the bold variant styles of Azimut summons a different point of view on typography and its relationship to writing, and each delivers its own statement on the design of letterforms.
  • Dinamo’s Bubblegum reminds me of the lettering doodles of my youth. It’s geometric yet loose and almost abstracted, its forms almost reminiscent of tinker toy building sets.
  • Each state of Maiz includes progressively larger star-shaped counter forms. All I can think to say is: pucker up!

Technology

  • There’s a part of me that really wants to be able to thoroughly enjoy The Way of Code, a little project between Rick Rubin and Anthropic. Unfortunately the subtitle kind of (ahem) kills the vibe for me.
  • It’s almost like tech companies are absolutely incapable of learning from their past mistakes and actively want to turn their customers against them. Case in point yet again, Adobe.
  • Just a QR code. The name says it all — no ads, no junk, no nonsense. The way useful things on the web should be.

Futurism

Humanities

Music & Film

One More Thing

This long weekend came at just the right moment. Toss in a work from home day on Friday and it’s about as perfect as it could be since I was able to get some good focused work done and squeeze in a windy bike ride and a haircut to boot. It’s been a week otherwise of trying to refocus energy around a long-backlogged idea and continuing to get organized around another which is starting to reach critical point where I’ll need to move past the research and planning phase. This is good — and welcome.