Though aware of the differences in international editions it had never occurred to me that illustrated covers were set in a specific type over its first printings, like these UK volumes with titles in Giorgio, fittingly a sort of space-age spaghetti Western font, we were unfamiliar with the mystery surrounding—via Boing Boing—the visual identity of Frank Herbert’s original trilogy from 1975 on, eventually encompassing all of the author’s work. and work about the author and franchise. An uncredited typographer lettered a modified version of Davison Art Nouveau, a font never digitised and can only be licensed from a single catalogue of a particular Manhattan foundry. Many more examples at Fonts in Use at the link above.
Monday, 30 January 2023
distrans (10. 511)
Friday, 27 January 2023
ars notaria (10. 503)
Via Clive Thompson’s latest linkfest, which is a delight in itself to check in on often, we are introduced to the Cistercian system of ciphers, almost rune-like, developed by the monastic order parallel to the arrival of the Hindu-Arabic numerals in northwestern Europe which gradually replaced Roman notation, this stave system of units was far more compact and convenient for transcription as a single glyph could represent any value from one to ten-thousand.
The pattern for forming higher numbers becomes apparent and later scholars expanded the system exponentially into the trillions. While seemingly not used for calculation, manuscripts from the thirteenth century show that they were used for numbering lists, indices, tables, musical notation and foliation—that is, page numbers. For more exploration and for a challenge (see also), click through to find source code to make a Cistercian clock.
catagories: ๐ฃ, ๐งฎ, Middle Ages
Monday, 23 January 2023
6x6 (10. 492)
zhengyue 2: the second day of the Lunar New Year is considered the birthday of all dogs

i shot the serif: US Department of State drops the typeface Times New Roman in favour of the more legible Calibri font
yellow magic orchestra: watch performances by the Japanese group that created some of the most innovative and influential acts in electronic music
odonymy: more open etymological street maps—see also
tet: a short, hand-drawn game about cooking and serving a Vietnamese holiday meal—via Waxy
Thursday, 12 January 2023
mutcd (10. 409)
Via Kottke, we are referred to Jon Keegan’s survey, contributor for Beautiful Public Data, of the US Federal Highway Administration’s style guide for American road-markings. With particular emphasis of uniform, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways sets forth the national standards for all signage open to public travel, with exacting specifications for font (Highway Gothic), size, kerning, backgrounds, etc to ensure swift recognition and legibility.
Tuesday, 3 January 2023
6x6 (10. 383)
shift happens: a comprehensive history of keyboards by Marcin Wichary—via Waxy
luni-solar: the people who are living in multiple timelines—see previously

hydraulic press interpretive dance: the impressive choreography of Sarah “Smac” McCreanor—see previously
nangajo: prominent figures of the Japanese design community present their greeting cards for 2023 (see previously), the Year of the Rabbit
franklin ace 100: the Apple clone (see previously) with a bizarre users’ guide—via Waxy
Monday, 2 January 2023
6x6 (10. 381)
your posture is correct if you can lift your right foot in the air and rotate it effortlessly without falling: a Finnish tutorial from 1979 on the proper way to open doors—with subtitles in several languages
gebrausgraphik: the ornament and logo design of Max Kรถrner
sword out of the stone: King Tut’s space dagger and other superlative archaeological finds—see previously
wood wide web: ethereal ghost flower forgoes photosynthesis—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links
inside story: an appreciation of Slim Goodbody
global village coffee house (10. 380)
Reddit contributor and conservator of varied projects called Forever Mozart 11 presents a vast design directory of graphic artist that perfectly encapsulates the 1990s aesthetic as filtered through the lens of American consumer culture with single page portfolios with selection illustrations of commissions and print interstitials.
The offset typography invoke, subject and style invoke a strong sense of nostalgia that informs the retro trend that’s seen a resurgence in recent times. I had a difficult time tracing the career of any one of these artists but could definitely extrapolate an entire gallery’s worth of advertising and ephemera from these signature samples and is definitely worth one’s time scrolling through and sharing your favourites.
Wednesday, 21 December 2022
8x8 (10. 350)
gadgetbahn: displacing solid public transportation networks with amusement park rides won't address underlying traffic problems
senior superlatives: the most interesting fonts and typefaces of the year
seneca falls: the altruistic act that is said to have inspired It’s A Wonderful Life and other festive adventures in audio with Josie Long
fรฆรฐingarsaga: listen again to an eleven-year-old Bjรถrk Guรฐmundsdรณttir recite the Nativity Story in Icelandic
as it was: some the most popular songs of the year
shot sage blue marilyn: the most expensive works of art trading hands this year
chief twit: abiding by results of a poll, Elon Musk announced he will step down as CEO of the social media platform as soon as a replacement can be identified
Friday, 16 December 2022
6x6 (10. 389)

that went places: this wordless Scotch advertisement is really moving
i love paris when it’s deco: revisiting the landmark Exposition Internationale des Arts Dรฉcoratifs et Industriels Modernes held along the Seine in 1925
united states of pop: DJ Earworm (previously) remixes the year in music
this christmas ad broke me: a somewhat cynical though more accurate seasonal supermarket commercial
i expect these will sell out soon: Trump launches a collection of NFT trading cards
Tuesday, 6 December 2022
8x8 (10. 365)
synthetic cubism: an exhibition of the cut paper figures of Pablo Picasso, a medium rarely shown—via Messy Nessy Chic
set in stone: a tutorial on reading ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs

carbon capture: Microsoft-backed start-up is using limestone powder to pull CO2 (previously here, here and here) out of the atmosphere
illuminated addresses: a graphic design studio rediscovered in Manchester that pre-dates the traditional 1922 beginning of commercial arts
ัะตะดัะธะน ะฒะตัiั: a Ukrainian choir performs Carol of the Bells (see previously) a century after it debuted at Carnegie Hall
varly’s swiftwater cafรฉ: a fish and chips in operation for two decades in remote Whittier, Alaska—a small village in one building
picassanta: annual tradition of giving a village phone kiosk a makeover, reminiscent of Guernica for this fractious year
Saturday, 19 November 2022
(•◡•) (10. 315)
This helpful, painstakingly formatted index of text meme templates—an interesting mix of emoji and ASCII characters—comes to our attention courtesy of Web Curios and was compiled by Nathan Allebach (previously, maybe) and available for anyone to copy, paste and tailor to one’s message. Definitely worth scrolling through this labour of love and completist dedication and letting us know your favourites.
Thursday, 17 November 2022
irulegiko eskua (10. 310)
Although unearthed during excavations near Pamplona last year, the significance of the ancient Bronze Age artefact known as the Hand of Irulegi has only recently come to light, informing our view of the Vascone tribe and their proto-Basque language, the ancestor of modern euskera, once thought to be a pre-literate culture. Written in Iberian script, the only word deciphered so far is sorioneku, a word with a modern cognate meaning “good fortune.” It is believed that this metal-alloy talisman would be hung at the threshold of a home for protection. Previously researchers believed that the Vascones had no system of writing before the arrival of the Romans and only used symbols to mint coins.
catagories: ๐ช๐ธ, ๐ฃ, archรฆology, language
Wednesday, 9 November 2022
6x6 (10. 288)
elektrisk kjรธretรธy: a retrospective look at how A-ha inspired and informed Norway’s early adoption of electric vehicles—via Things Magazine
taposiris magna: archaeologists discover a nearly mile long tunnel deep under a temple near Alexandria on the search for Cleopatra’s lost tomb—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links

stenography: more on shorthand (see previously) in ancient Greek and Roman texts
nit-picking: oldest inscription bearing a full sentence found on a Canaanite comb
terrain de stationnement: France to require all existing and new parking lots to be covered with solar panels
Monday, 24 October 2022
๐๐๐ฐ (10. 248)
With evidence of human occupation for the past one hundred and fifty thousand years and settled some five millennia past in the early neolithic period, we visited the archaeological site and partial, creative reconstruction of King Minos’ palace compound at Knossos, considered the oldest city in Europe and with the Minoan culture the origin of the first intelligible writing system with Linear B.
catagories: ๐ฌ๐ท, ๐ฃ, archรฆology
Wednesday, 19 October 2022
7x7 (10. 239)
actually: summoning the Candymansplainer

kessler syndrome: more on orbital space junk—see previously
one-dimensional: construction starts on the linear megacity in the desert—see previously
woodpeckers in space: an 80s Danish hit
not alone: most kanji readers cannot read it in cursive—see also
based on a true story: horror classics inspired by actual events
Saturday, 15 October 2022
ร la carte (10. 228)
The need having fortunately not arisen and never noticing these instructions before from my online bank, I was rather intrigued that the three-stacked dots
icon was referred to as the kebab and wondered about the identity of other menu widgets. Apparently there are a whole suite of representations, and the differences are primarily stylistic to distinguish between navigational options, the line variety opening up a whole new screen, more or overflow, whereas the dot subset opens an in-line (closed) scaled for mobile devices. Not certain how often they were employed in the wild, but the Chocolate Box is also known as the Bento Menu and the Strawberry as the Dรถner, a kind of kebab.
Friday, 30 September 2022
please confirm that your surname is indeed St&252;vel (10. 181)

Monday, 19 September 2022
many-eyed seraphim (10. 150)
The Multiocular O (give it googly eyes, lots of them) is a hapax legomenon in glyph form of the Cyrillic alphabet, occurring just once in the known lexicon as ะผะฝ҄ะพ๊ฎัะธััะน in Old Church Slavonic (previously). In addition to the reminder of how strange and monstrous biblical angels are supposed to be, there is a current petition to revise the Unicode representation to make it more accurate.
Saturday, 17 September 2022
7x7 (10. 141)
jezero: Perseverance explores a Martian crater
lingthusiasm: an interview with xkcd author Randall Munroe on hypothetical questions about language and orthography—via Language Log
achievement unlocked: a radical redesign for Girl Scout badges—see also

emoticons: more on the IPA, EPA (English Phonotypic Alphabet), Issac Pitman and other champions of spelling reform from Shady Characters
jazz and cats: the life and surrealistic art of Gertrude Abercrombie
earth below us: outstanding images from the Astronomy Photographer of the Year Contest
Saturday, 10 September 2022
8x8 (10. 124)
the girl from ipanema: the Yahoo! GeoCities (previously) Midi project has gathered a collection of over one-hundred and fifty thousand chiptunes, via Web Curios
summer island: a graphic horror novella that’s a collaboration between a story authored by a human and illustrations courtesy a machine
bill-of-sale: receipts and letterhead of the Old East End

premium vector: a selection of 90s cursor effects (trails, rainbows) that can be incorporated into one’s website—via ibฤซdem
trichromacy: fascinating etymologies of words for colours—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links
b-poty: avian photography of the year
pattern recognition: more on mondegreens and misheard lyrics