ZXX Type by Sang Mun

With the recent uncovering of the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program, Americans and perhaps everyone using the services of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook around the world, are threatened to having their personal private messages uncovered.

ZXX Type was created by Sang Mun. He designed 6 different typeface variants (Sans, Bold, Camo, False, Noise and Xed) to be virtually unreadable by machines or text scanning software. He’s also offering the font free for download

Over the course of a year, I researched and created ZXX, a disruptive typeface which takes its name from the Library of Congress’ listing of three-letter codes denoting which language a book is written in. Code “ZXX” is used when there is: “No linguistic content; Not applicable.”

http://z-x-x.org/

Lovin’ Doc McStuffin’

I’m proud to share the logo I and the group I’m working for did for Disney’s new upcoming animated show for 2012, Doc McStuffins. It took A LOT of iterations and concepts before this final logo and we’re glad at the overall outcome.

Dottie “Doc” McStuffins, is a 6 year old who communicates with and heals stuffed animals and toys out of her backyard clinic. The series will highlight the importance of taking care of oneself and others, while showcasing the hallmarks of great Disney storytelling – fantasy and wish fulfillment.

"Doc McStuffins" is a production of the Dublin, Ireland-based Academy Award-nominated animation studio Brown Bag Films in association with Disney Channel.

I had to do the entire typeface alphabet for this and made it to a usable font file. I then translated this logo to at least 25 different languages for different markets. What a “fun” thing to do on a weekend eh? :) You might not see a lot of detail but upon closer inspection, there was a lot of texturing involved like cloth fabric and fur so it was quite challenging to repeat this over 25 times, but I got it worked out.

I’ll try to ask permission before posting the other concepts we had and will share them here in an update to this post if possible. I actually had to wait for the show to officially launch so as not to preempt anything.

Classic Philippine Movie Theaters

Video48 is a great site for classic Filipino cinema. The site has lots of vintage local movie posters and newspaper clipping of stars. One thing that struck me the most was this nostalgic collection of classic and famous Philippine movie theater logos that I saw in their Facebook page.

The logos were mostly your typical 50’s and 60’s retro typography with letterpress-quality ‘jagged’ lines that were printing inadequacies at that time, but now, look awesome to me. If you didn’t know, I’m fond of classic cartoons, tech, toys, magazines, and other abubots, You may call me a nostalgic geek :)

As far as I can remember, most of the theaters above had those classy art-deco facades, reminiscent of the old Rizal Avenue “Avenida” area. Sometimes, I wish we still had preserved the old-Manila. Architecture design then was, in some way, better than what we have right now – especially movie theaters which are now mostly inside malls.

Photo courtesy of Video48 (top) and orngejuglr from Flickr

Pre-LRT, Rizal Avenue was bustling with business and shopping centers but as traffic worsened in the area and people were now taking the LRT (which meant less foot traffic) business and theaters eventually folded up along the avenue.

You can clearly see the Ideal theater (below) weather time since it started in 1933, unfortunately it was demolished in the 70’s to give way to a department store.

Photo courtesy of Bren Buenaluz (Beyond Forgetting) from Flickr and Wikipedia (bottom)

PBS Off Book: Typography by Designers

Type is everywhere. Every print publication, website, movie, advertisement and public message involves the creation or selection of a fitting typeface. Online, a rich and artistic typographical culture exists, where typefaces are created and graphic design seeps in to every image.

Produced by Kornhaber Brown

Anatomy of Type

If you want to know more about typography and the difference between an aperture and a counter -- both found in a type, better check out Typography Deconstructed.

We built TypeDecon as a resource to bring all of this information into one place to build a very strong resource when it comes to the topic of typography, both the Anatomy of Type and Type Glossary.

http://www.typographydeconstructed.com/

We love free fonts!

Just found some good sites for free fonts and one wherein you can create your own font.

“We spent plenty of hours to compile this list of hand-picked fonts for you. This is an amazing resource for everyone who would like to be presented with amazing free fonts to Download.” - www.fontex.org

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Be Stupid

Smart may have the brains... but stupid has the balls. To be stupid is to be brave.

Interesting statement video. The Be Stupid Philosophy by DIESEL. Made by Anomaly.

Microsoft's Metro UI is now on the Windows Phone 7 Series

With the introduction of the Windows Phone 7 Series Microsoft decided that moving on to the minimalistic direction and user interface of Metro was the only way to save Windows Mobile.

The Metro UI was first seen on Windows Media Center which made it's debut on Windows XP specifically in Windows XP Media Center. The UI made menu surfing and content browsing easier on a remote control or arrow cursor. This was when Internet television was still in its early stage.

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What typeface are you?

Wondering what you would have been if you were a font? born out of love and kerning? of pain and leading? of picas and pixel? Oh okay..sorry. Take this test by Pentagram to find out:

If you've ever sat down with a type designer, what you quickly realize is that they rarely talk about fonts in purely aesthetic or even functional terms: They talk about assertiveness or calm or friendliness. In short, they talk about personality traits. It makes sense, then, that your personality could be translated into a typeface.

According to the test, I’m Perpertua Titling Light. (same with Adam Sandler according to the list) Wait!? and all the while I thought I was Gotham. :)

What Type are You? (Password: Character)

Fontplore: Interactive Font Browsing

Fontplore is an interactive application designed for searching and exploring font databases. Fontplore helps you to easily find the right typeface for your project in a collection of several thousands of fonts. It lets you browse, preview, compare and print the fonts you are interested in.

http://www.fontplore.org/

Geek Shirt (I Be Au Sm) at Threadless

This shirt was made by Lawrence Villanueva aka boostr29. It won the Threadless Loves Geek shirt design competition which Microsoft sponsored. His prize? $2,000 cash and other cool items like Zune HD, Xbox 360 with games, etc.. Congratulations Lawrence!.

I actually made three entries for the loves geeks contest and all of them did fairly well. I wasn't really expecting to win but in the back of my mind i was hoping. And lo and behold after a week I got the email!!! I actually received the notice a day before my birthday which was an awesome surprise and probably the best birthday gift ever!

Again thank you so much! Maraming Salamat! :)

- Get this shirt at Threadless

Compare and Experiment Fonts Online

If you are a web designer and into coding CSS stylesheets then this tool is for you.

Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. Its primary role is to make web designer’s life easier. As the new fonts are bundled into operating systems, the list of the common fonts will be updated.

Simply said, this online tool will let you compare standard web fonts (even installed system fonts) with each other. You can adjust the size, leading, tracking,  color, etc…This is one good tool for those who’s into CSS.

http://www.typetester.org/

Difference between Arial and Helvetica

Do you think you know the difference between these 2 famous typefaces?

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