“The Colosseo poster has to be experienced in person. Truly beautiful.” : Thank you, Tiffany . (It’s worth noting Tiffany Wardle earned her Master of Arts in Theory and History of Typography and Graphic Communication from the University of Reading in England). … Read the rest here
Restoration Hardware’s Cast Metal Letter Collection : Sand-cast aluminum “in a beautifully proportioned serif font,” finished in chestnut bronze. Available in four sizes from 4” to 12” for the entire alphabet, as well as ampersand and ‘@’ characters. … Read the rest here
New HTML5 Form Field Type: range : Amidst all the HTML5 buzz over the past year, somehow I missed this: HTML5 offers a new input field type, type=”range” , which renders a UI slider for entering data anywhere between the min and max values you specify. This feature could become as useful as CSS multiple backgrounds, in that a) it’s long overdue and b) we’re already faking it all over the web. The HTML5 presentation from which this slide was taken, by the way, is wonderful. It’s an interactive teaching tool on the subject of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript APIs. Slide 41 is really wild—press 3, then arrow left or right. Update: I failed to mention these slides are best viewed with a browser that already supports these features, i.e… Read the rest here
Congratulations to Glen LaFortune and Phil Coffman for winning an iPad 16GB Wi-Fi + 3G and 16GB Wi-Fi, respectively. Tallying the numbers from a few hundred poster orders and a couple dozen postcards, Random.org spit out the number 35, bestowing Glen the fortune of winning an iPad. (Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun, Glen). The low number also meant those who placed orders within only a couple of hours after launch were destined to win, deservedly. Phil’s Colosseo micro-site hovered in the top 3 spots for the required search phrase , sent the most traffic to colosseotype.com , and generated lots of positive buzz. But above all, I smile every time I flip the light switch on his site… Read the rest here
The results (and selections from myself based on a purely ambiguous, subjective awesomeness rating) are in. Here are the eight nine winners. Martian Poster Winners The following individuals have won a signed copy of the Colosseo, Exclusive “Martian” Edition : Based on number of likes, Craig Henry’s ßark and Dave Mott’s Dribbble Ball are automatic winners. Even without the likes, however, they should have won—they’re both incredibly creative and obviously required a good amount of time to execute. Darren Geraghty’s This Is Not A Chair illustration was another shoe-in win. … Read the rest here
Twitter Unveils “Promoted Tweets” Advertising Plan : Claire Cain Miller, reporting for The New York Times: The advertising program, which Twitter calls Promoted Tweets, will show up when Twitter users search for keywords that the advertisers have bought to link to their ads. Later, Twitter plans to show promoted posts in the stream of Twitter posts, based on how relevant they might be to a particular user…. When a Twitter user searches for a word an advertiser bought, the promoted message will show up at the top of the results, even if it was written much earlier. The posts say they are promoted by the company in small type, and when someone rolls over a promoted post with a cursor, it turns yellow. Best Buy, Virgin America, Starbucks, and Bravo are among the first advertisers, but expect that list to grow by the thousands very shortly. … Read the rest here
Josh+Amy Wedding Invitation Video : Love the creativity here. Filmed with a Canon 5D Mark II, but I love what “Matt E” explains in the video’s notes: There’s so much buzz in the photo and video industries about cameras like the Canon 5D Mark II and the Canon 7D. But, I feel that this clip would have been just as effective regardless of the type of camera it was shot with. The gorgeous footage from the 5DII only enhances the production value, it doesn’t create that value from nothing. It’s a good reminder that the gear we use is nothing more than a tool, like a hammer or a screwdriver. … Read the rest here
What the iPad is Missing: Good Typography : Stephen Coles, FontShop’s self-described “Glyph Pusher” (and boy does he know glyphs): Apple has made some puzzling decisions over the last few years that leave one wondering if they really care about typography as much as they did in the 1980s when the Mac launched the desktop publishing revolution. As recently as 2005, Steve Jobs made typography a central theme of his commencement address to Stanford grads, but his actions as the almighty head of Apple haven’t followed suit. Sadly, I have to agree with Stephen’s thoughts. The Winnie the Pooh book that comes with iBooks is a shining (i.e. dull) example of illegible type. … Read the rest here
It’s been a fun week for me. Two iPad giveaways ( Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G ), a rebound playoff , and today’s invite giveaway—all with the intent of helping provide some exposure for my Colosseo poster. Thanks to everyone who has participated so far. First, on Dribbble: To be clear, I take no credit for what Dribbble has become. Credit is to be given to Dan Cederholm and Rich Thornett … Read the rest here
Secrets of the Biggest Selling Launch Ever : Seth Godin: Over 25 years, Apple has earned the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to their tribe. They can get the word out about a new product without a lot of money because one by one, they’ve signed people up. They didn’t sell 300,000 iPads in one day, they sold them over a few decades. Seth’s entire list is not only worth reading but evangelizing—especially within large organizations: Make a product worth talking about. Sounds obvious. If it’s so obvious, then why don’t the other big companies ship stuff like this? … Read the rest here
Today kicks off a series of contests that will be announced here throughout this week. Each day you’ll see a new contest, aimed at helping promote the Colosseo letterpress poster and, in return, providing you a chance to win one of a few prizes. Contest #1: Win an iPad 16GB Wi-Fi + 3G This first contest is pretty simple. To have a shot at winning an iPad 16GB with Wi-Fi + 3G (valued at $629 USD), do either of the following: If you’ve already purchased one of my Colosseo posters, you’re already entered to win. … Read the rest here
ISO50: How to Shoot Stop Motion From Above : Alex Cornell: Classify this as a go-to ‘bootleg’ option if you don’t have access to one of those crazy $10,000 rigs that lets you fly above your subject etc. If you are looking for a relatively easy and inexpensive way to complete this type of project, this is one way to do it. That’s quite the rig. Don’t miss the music video he linked up that uses the same technique. … Read the rest here
Haäfe & Haph Ampersand 10-Pack : These OpenType/EPS ampersands (available for just $10) are matched only by this site’s design. Great stuff. … Read the rest here
We’ve added a third job type to Authentic Jobs , specifically for contract positions. You can read more about the hows and whys over at the Authentic Jobs blog . I’m repeating the screencast video here merely to give me a chance to talk about the making of it. Surprisingly, this is only the second screencast I’ve done throughout 11 years of doing web stuff. I’ve still got plenty to learn… Read the rest here
Sneaker Script OT : Some of the cursive characters in this typeface are a little tough to read, which means it wouldn’t be ideal for setting copy. But a logo with a friendly, humanistic feel? Probably perfect for it. … Read the rest here
Flickr Letterpress Type Group : I’ve created a Flickr group for those of you who have purchased one of my letterpress posters. Please consider posting a photo of yours. Details about your location and how you framed it will be helpful for others, too. … Read the rest here
Last October, I wrote about my frustrations with Fireworks CS4 , and the search for decent competitors to Adobe Software. Photoshop has many alternatives, and Illustrator has a handful, but nothing else seemed to cater for the mix of vector and bitmap editing that is Fireworks. I recently tried both Photoshop and Illustrator again for icon creation, and Illustrator in particular irritated the hell out of me with it’s pixel preview artefacts ( still not fixed from CS3). Before I get a sackful of comments from diehard Photoshop fans, please believe me when I say that Photoshop is not the right tool. That post did point to 3 possibilities however: Acorn , Drawit and Opacity … Read the rest here
Oh Joy!’s 2010 Suggested Golf Attire : Planning on getting in some tee time soon? Don’t leave home without proper attire, gents. (Speaking of tees, these wedding invitations for a ceremony at the Saratoga National Golf Club are fantastic.) … Read the rest here
I recently presented a session at MIX10, The Type We Want , in which I covered where we came from with using custom fonts on the web, where we are now and the hurdles we face moving forward. All of the videos and slides are posted at http://live.visitmix.com/Videos . You’ll have to sift through the list to find my session, DS15. The slideshow posted on the MIX10 site is the original PowerPoint file which, ironically, won’t show the right fonts. I’ve uploaded the slides to Slideshare, though, and have embedded them for your perusal. … Read the rest here
ReadyShipper: Bulk Shipping for Mac/PC : Today has been filled with shipping madness, as the first round of Colosseo letterpress posters are on their way to customers. While a little buggy and a bit of an eyesore, ReadyShipper has saved my hide today. Integration with PayPal, UPS, and Stamps.com has made it fairly easy to process dozens and dozens of orders at a time. … Read the rest here