It’s time for type to get up off the page and into the world. The 3D Type Book is a comprehensive showcase of three-dimensional typefaces and letterforms, featuring over 160 designers and 300 projects (and over 1,300 photographs) from the simple to the cellular, using unconventional materials like cheese, pebbles, and human skin . The book, which covers typography from the 1940′s to today, was compiled by Agathe Jacquillat and Tomi Vollauschek at the London multidisciplinary design studio FL@33, and looks to be a gorgeous meditation on the ways we can interact with type – and the way type can interact with us. Click through to see some of the amazing work from the book and watch a video about the project.
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As you’ve probably noticed by now, we’re big fans of interesting typography here at Flavorpill — whether we spot it on someone’s forearm or in the MoMA’s permanent collection. With that in mind, click through for our roundup of ten of the craziest fonts we could get our hands on, from a design that’s made out of raw meat to one that’s created using beard clippings.
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Now here’s a design world trend that we’d like to see catch on: e-Types, an agency based out of Copenhagen, has opened a brick and mortar concept store where customers can buy digital fonts — including many typefaces that have never been publicly available until now — in a physical space as opposed to exclusively online. Fonts are sold on “a specially designed USB” that looks like a credit card, alongside of other items, like t-shirts, posters, and notebooks. There’s only one catch: The store is currently only planned to be open through the end of the year, so if you’re a big typography geek, we suggest that you book your flights to Denmark now! [via Morpheus Media]
Our friends over at The Art of the Title Sequence created a short video called “A Brief History of Title Design” for a presentation at this year’s SXSW Festival. Click through to watch their sweeping compilation (which is set to RJD2′s “Ghostwriter), and for a full list of the more than 70 films and TV shows from which the opening title sequences were pulled. Let us know in the comments: Did they miss any of your favorites?
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If there’s one thing that could inspired to abandon our addiction to virtual Scrabble, then it’s Andrew Capener’s A-1 Scrabble designer edition, which he created as a student project. “The idea was to excite people about typography by giving them the ability to choose what font their Scrabble set would come in,” he explains. “The set would come in the font of your choice or with an assorted font pack.” The board itself and the interior box is made out of solid walnut, while the exterior box is made from birch. Click through to get a better look at the set.
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Berlin-based photographer and illustrator Lisa Rienermann created this unique font out of buildings and blue skies while studying at the University of Duisburg-Essen; it was awarded a certificate of typographic excellence by the Type Directors Club New York back in 2007. “It began with the ‘Q,’” she has explained. “I was in a kind of courtyard in Barcelona. I looked upward and saw houses, the blue sky and clouds. The more I looked, I saw that the houses formed a letter Q.” Click through for a better look at some of the letters.
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Seattle-based designer Shelby White has created a rather nice looking guide to 50 of the most commonly used typefaces in the world that includes fun trivia like the fonts’ designers, born-on dates, and cities of origin. Added bonus: It’s conveniently available for purchase as a print for less than 30 bones. Click here to view the full-size version. [via Fast Company]
So, this is rather clever: Evan Travelstead — who we’re assuming must be a die-hard Star Wars fan — created a poster of Darth Vader using typography and a selection of the character’s most famous quotes. From the looks of it, this was just a personal project for the Orlando-based designer, but we want it on a t-shirt, stat. Click through to get a better look.
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Some exciting news for typography geeks: Following hot on the heels of last year’s acquisition of the “@” symbol, MoMA has acquired 23 digital fonts for their Architecture and Design collection. “Some are of everyday use, like Verdana; others are familiar characters in our world, like Gotham, which was used in President Obama’s election campaign, or OCR-A, which we can find at the bottom of any product’s bar code; and others are still less common, but exquisitely resonant, like Walker or Template Gothic,” explains Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator of the Department of Architecture and Design. “We paid particular attention to the synthesis of goals, means, and elegance that we always seek in modern design.”
While Max Miedinger’s 36-point Helvetica Bold (1956) was previously the only typeface in MoMA’s collection, the museum plans to grow their offerings to document the past century. Click through to view the 23 newly-acquired typefaces, which will be on view starting March 2 in MoMA’s Architecture and Design galleries, as part of a collection show entitled Standard Deviations; Prototypes, Archetypes, and Families in Contemporary Design.
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If a new study by Princeton psychologists is any indication, we’ll be seeing a surge in ugly typefaces within the near future. After switching out straightforward text book fonts for “disfluent” ones like Comic Sans and Haettenschweiler, the team of researchers found that students’ reading retention “significantly improved in naturalistic settings by presenting reading material in a format that is slightly harder to read.” Given the potential educational application of this evidence — as well as its inevitably misapplied implications — here’s a preemptive field guide to five of the most reviled typefaces we’ll regrettably be seeing more of soon.
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