2254.As anyone knows, Dave Knows PDX.

Dave knows PDX is built on an ancient unicorn burial ground, and you can trust Dave, because Dave Knows PDX, as I said.

I know that Dave is on Twitter, and Dave knows he wants more followers, and if you follow Dave, then you DM him on Twitter so that Dave knows you’re following him, he will enter your name in a drawing, and once Dave knows he has more than 150 followers, he’ll randomly pick a name and you’ll know whether or not you’ll be the proud owner of a shrink-wrapped set of the complete run of Fawlty Towers, which, as you and Dave and everyone knows, stars the not-yet-late John Cleese.

You know.

So you’ll want to follow Dave at http://twitter.com/DaveKnowsPDX. And then let him know that you’re following him.

If you know what I mean. You know?

Technorati Tags: net_liff, Dave Knows PDX, PDX Tweeters

2253.… ands I lurves me some layout work. And I work best under a deadline. I hate them and I love them. And my hands are very full. Working in InDesign CS3 to lay out the OryCon 31 Programs and the Sierra Club Columbia Groups Columbia Overlook.

In the meantime, let me leave you with this thought to mull over, cribbed from comic Charles Fleischer, but probably somewhat incorrectly (but that’s okay):

If Van Johnson had a gym, and Jim Morrison and a van and Don Johnson needed to get there in a hurry, would Van Johnson let Don Johnson use Jim Morrison’s van to get to Van Johnson’s Gym?

Just askin’.

Technorati Tags: design, graphic design, print design, OryCon 31, liff, Charles Fleischer

2251.Benjamin Lukoff, a Seattleite with whom I’m fortuned to occiasionally communiciate with, has an article up on Crosscut.com about the Seattle street blades which are being gradually rolled out, coincidentally at more-or-less the same time Portland’s are undergoing a gradual change.

The observation is particularly fun because, just as the leaves are going from green to brown, so are the the Seattle street blades:

Actually, not all of the Seattle blades are brown, just the ones on Seattle’s network of Olmstead boulevards, those city-spanning parkway blvds like Ravenna Blvd or (as above) Lake Washington Blvd and Interlaken Blvd that were inspired by the Olmstead Brothers’ park plan for Seattle.

Ben points out that this change has been in the works for a while:

Yet it turns out that we approved this project in 2006 as part of the Bridging the Gap levy. Since then we’ve begun replacing signs at all our nearly 13,000 intersections, as the aluminum ones installed in the 1960s have definitely begun to show their age, and the new fiberglass batch is larger and more reflective. In a sense, we’re finally catching up with the rest of the country. Our timing may not have been perfect, but we’d better pray for strong stomachs, because this project is scheduled to go, according to a report in The Seattle Times, until 2016. (On the bright side, that leaves plenty of time for you to pick up your favorite old sign at the city’s surplus warehouse.

The material appears to be the same that we here in PDX are seeing going up on our new street blades.

The new Seattle design not only includes a design for streets and roads but also for pedestrian stairways and paths that happen to be in the streets right-of-way and trails (such as the Burke-Gilman Trail), with a walking-man pictogram similar to the ones we see on our walk-signals. Very nifty.

Ben does point out that, as I’ve seen in Portland, some mistakes are obtaining. No misspellings yet, but directionals are being left off and some signs are a little inscrutable.

It is becoming apparent that Clearview, the font, is catching on all over. Seattle’s signs are using it too, and the reputation of mixed-case type is being forewarded thereon.

The real gem is that Ben links two other of us Address Nerd (or sign-obsessives, if you will). The other one is one whom I’ve enjoyed, Morgan Wick; the other is, of course, my own self. It made my day when I saw he linked me to the work “odd”, which made me laugh out loud.

Address nerds go viral? Maybe. And here I thought I was the only one, when I started. Nifty.

Ben’s full flickr stream is here. Also very nifty. Don’t miss the “Gently Used Kids Sale” while you’re at it. That Seattle – so inscrutable.

Technorati Tags: Address Nerd, street blad, street sign design, Street Blade Gallery, Crosscut, Samuel John Klein, Morgan Wick, Benjamin Lukoff

2250.Doug TenNapel gave you Earthworm Jim and GEAR, and now he gives you about ten minutes or so of his time to show you how he does what he does and talk about storytelling:

What is interesting about TenNapel is, with just about everybody (up to and including Scott McCloud and Scott Adams) using graphics tablets to get the job done, TenNapel kicks it old-school – at the drawing board, inking in pencilled panels on Bristol board using Sumi-e ink.

His remarks about using a Cintiq (for which I would kill everyone’s grandparents to own) versus drawing to complete a story were insightful and revealing. He draws for the same reason a lot of us draw. Drawing is, amongst other things, sensual as well as sensuous. The adjectives he use approach carnal; the feeling of laying down graphite and ink on paper is indeed seductive. While telling the story is part of what feeds his head, unless he’s actually drawing the drawings and filling them in with brush and ink, it’s kind of empty. There’s a decided lack of kinesthesia there; and while computers can make comic artists mad efficient and productive, there’s a decided feeling of separation from one’s work.

In the excellent Making Comics, Scott McCloud mentions a moment when he went out, bought a two-dollar (plus tax – the man lives in California, I do believe) roller ball pen, a Pilot Precise (the only pen worth owning) V7 (I prefer V5, but that’s just me) and dashes off a sketch with it, making the point that if you really want to draw comics, computers may be the bomb and heaven for you, but you can do it with a scrap of paper and a pen off the shelf.

If you want.

Technorati Tags: Comic art, Doug TenNapel, Scott McCloud, Drawing, Drawing Tools

2249.Another new work for y’alls:

hangoversight (n): The factfinding process a drinker puts themselves through analyzing (as best as they can) the things they might have done to prevent the horrible way they feel the morning after the night before. Assaying and measuring the dog that bit you regardless of the hair that it grows.

“Man, Gina really tied one on last night, but after a bit of hangoversight she decided that next time, there will be no mixing that tequila and that rum. Bad mojo on her part!”

Technorati Tags: Neologisms, teh funnay, ZehnKatzen

2247.What is letterPLAYGROUND?

It’s just what it says it is. No fancy web-based application, just a site where you and I and everyone we know can riff on letterforms, make them art, upload them, share them, and have fun.

It’s type, it’s art, it’s playtime.

You oughta check it out. Any graphic program, any level of artistic skill, any wacky (or restrained) inspiration welcome:

(via the always-excellent Extensis)

2246.Might be a little NSFW, unless your boss understands that a drawing of a nude female figure is not necessarily pr0n. Teaches you proportions and where the general stuff’s suppose to go:

… and here’s a quick-sketch, time-lapse of an artist doing a female figure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMhnb09YjQI. Same edge-of-NSFW warning applies. Tell your boss that artistically-inclined workers make better problem solvers.

Actually, they do.

Technorati Tags: How to draw, how to draw the female figure, drawing tutorials, youtube

2245.In 1996, the legendary digital typographer Zuzana Licko created Mrs. Eaves, a font which was an amazing OpenType revival of Baskerville.

Therein lies a tale.

When one looks into the life stories of the great typographers, one finds, as with lives of other artists of remarkable passion, complex personal lives. Eric Gill has proven to be one, and John Baskerville is no exception. From Emigre Magazine, issue 38:

Licko’s selection of the name Mrs Eaves reveals an interesting story. Like his types, Baskerville was, himself, a controversial character. He hired Sarah Eaves as his housekeeper. Eventually her husband Richard abandoned her and their five children, and Mrs Eaves became Baskerville’s mistress and eventual helpmate with typesetting and printing. On the death of Mrs Eaves estranged husband, she married John Baskerville within the month. Selection of the name Mrs Eaves honors one of the forgotten women in the history of typography.

Behind every great man was a great woman. In Baskerville’s case, that was Sarah Eaves.

However, one not familiar with the history of Mrs. Eaves might wonder why there couldn’t be a Mr. Eaves, to round out the symmetry (indeed, those familiar with the legend might also find it amusing). At the very least one wonders what a “male” version of this distaff font might look like. This monty, Licko released Mr. Eaves, answering the question:

The font Mr Eaves is designed to echo the style of Mrs Eaves but to be more than just a version of the Mrs with the serifs cut off. The ratio of x-height to ascender height gie an impression of classic style, just as with the Mrs, but the clean, modern lines give a current feel, something like a variation of Gill Sans or Myriad. The italic versions, with their obvious but dignified filips, seem to suggest a very refined sort of handwriting. I very much enjoy the curls-up on the bottom of the miniscule l’s, and the leg on the majuscule R is something I’m silly in love with. This very much lives at the intersection of modern geometric fonts and humanist, designed fonts – a verson of it, Mr Eaves Modern, comes across as a warm version of Futura.

Graphic copyright Emigre

And now, Mrs Eaves and Mr Eaves live in perfect harmony, which you can avail yourself of at Emigre: http://www.emigre.com/EFfeature.php?di=213.

Technorati Tags: typography, emigre fonts, Mr Eaves, Mrs Eaves, Baskerville

2244.I’ve always felt that type is not as static as people think it is. Even printed, unchanging type has the power to move, influence and change moods (imagine a Last Will and Testament in Times Roman. Now, Imagine the same document in Comic Sans. How would that make you feel?)

In a video that has to be seen to be appreciated, Swiss typographers Nicolas Kunz and Michael Flückinger exhibit Laika, a font that was designed to transition seamlessly between any number of outside stimuli.

Art imitates life, typographically:

LAIKA from Michael Flückiger on Vimeo.

Laika can be further assayed at its website: http://laikafont.ch .

Technorati Tags: typography, digital typography, laika

2243.If you’re interested in Portland streetscapes, funky found typography, and Portland visual history as I am, then you already have Portland Building Ads blog (http://pdxbuildingads.blogspot.com) in your blogrollio somewhere.

So, when the proprietor thereon asked me if he couldn’t use this picture:

To flesh out a visual history of the corner of SW 17th and West Burnside, I naturally said “hells-to-the-yeah!”

Thanks to Dan for the query. I’m only too happy to assist, because when it comes to Portland visual history, I’m all over that. And flattered too!

If you like vintage type and vintage signs, too, he cited a local blogger who does vintage Portland sign reproductions. His name is Peter Vogel, he blogs at The Nutmegger Workshop: http://www.nutmeggerworkshop.com/, and the works on offer are supremely charming and attractive. So, go, do that thing there!

Technorati Tags: PDX, Portland, Portland Visual History, PDX Visual History, Portland Building Ads, Nutmegger Workshop