Thursday 27 May 2021
font-size
� or code point blank
Specials or replacement characters are shunted to the very end of Unicode allocations to act as a substitute for an otherwise unrepresentable glyph (see previously here and here). The garbled text that can result from bad decoding and false rendering is referred to mojibake (ๆๅญๅใ). Though the effects are most catastrophic across different writing systems, languages that use the extended Latin alphabet assigned the character set “Western” or ISO-8859-1 encounter problems as well with the Icelandic praise for outstanding hospitality รพjรณรฐlรถรฐ transmitted as the unintelligible mess ร¾jร³ร°lร¶ร° or some other character string likely to break one’s computer.
catagories: ๐ฏ๐ต, ๐ฌ, ๐ฃ, networking and blogging
Tuesday 25 May 2021
triptych
Via friend of the blog Everlasting Blรถrt, we thoroughly enjoyed pouring of the details of Carla Gannis’ 2014 digital art project that replaces the religious allegory and iconography of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (see previously here and here) with a more secular and contemporary vernacular, the collage exploring modern vanities and consumerism. Much more at the links above and the short video on the exhibition below. Check out all three panels compared with the original and let us know your favourite emoji substitutions.
catagories: ๐ณ๐ฑ, ๐จ, ๐ฃ, networking and blogging
Monday 24 May 2021
ruby characters
Originally typesetters’ lingo for interlinear citations for a letter with a five-and-a-half point (about a pica) height—the US using a standard called agate which is also in newsprint the smallest legible text, the title refers to mark-up notations or glosses that appear above or to the side of logographic glyphs to aid in or clarify pronunciation—and sometimes as a means to communicate puns or entendre. In Japanese, the phonetic courtesy characters are called furigana and in Mandarin, Bopomofo—from the first four letters of the system: ใ , ใ, ใ and ใ.
Saturday 22 May 2021
๐
Though admittedly probably with little practical application, we enjoyed toggling the settings and cycling through the range of cartographic projections (see previously) and scalable display options on Making Maps Out of Emojis via the always excellent Maps Mania. Watching the countries crawl across the screen pixelwise reminds me of the zero-player Game of Life. There are atlas and globe configurations and a number of different ways to display landmasses and the oceans with sliders to shift the granularity and ensure our smaller neighbours get represented. Click through for more including how to custom code a dynamic world of one’s own.
Wednesday 19 May 2021
alfa beta
One foundry has—for the centenary plus one of the graphic designer’s birth—plans a re-issue of the authoritative style guide by Turinese type artist Aldo Novarese (*1920 - †1995, also credited with ITC Symbol, Eurostile and Microgramma) plus a revival of his signature font Stadio from 1974, which was formerly lost to the ages, existing only in dry-transfer, rub-on lettering form. More on this extra bold grotesque and Zetafonts at Print Mag at the link above.
Tuesday 18 May 2021
7x7
triangulate your influences: maps of the USA and UK with cities and towns represented by their most prominent or notorious natives—via Things Magazine
don’t go jason waterfalls: a medley of misquotations, a lot of which are new to us too—see alsounbranded: gorgeous images of Tokyo digitally denuded of cables and signage by Rumi Ando—via Present /&/ Correct
map app: create custom vintage style maps of anywhere at any historical period—via Web Curios
*: a historical style symbol (previously)—via Stan Carey
princeself: an affirming survey and guide to neo-pronouns—via ibฤซdem
muchmusic: a fun, nationally sourced soundtrack for the Canadian census
Saturday 15 May 2021
ducks unlimited
Via the happily back from sabbatical Web Curios, we are treated a treasury—an embarrassment really of more than one could ever use—of little pixel-banked of little graphic design images from Iconduck, providing a consistently styled archive of over one hundred thousand free and open source illustrations categorised by subject and theme to use as one sees fit.
Friday 14 May 2021
obscenicons
We really enjoyed revisiting the maledicta of grawlixes and the like (previously) from the always excellent Shady Characters as developed by Mort Walker’s lexicon and learn a bit more of the visual vernacular with jarns (๐), quimps and nittles that mask the curses and waftaroms and indotherms that represent fragrant smells. More to explore at the links above.
Tuesday 4 May 2021
monotype
Default settings are an announcement to one’s audience and become the pervasive standard of least-resistance—as seen in the domineering notes, notices and presentations appearing in the pre-set font family of the Microsoft Office suite of products and so it was a welcome bit of news that the choice was not to be so much foisted on users or queued up in recently used—in the architecture of the programming—but rather would rather replace, unseat King Calibri (Lucas de Groot’s 2002 creation is a fine one but suffer from ubiquity) with a user-juried selection (albeit a self-selecting pool) with contenders including the symmetry-breaking Seaford from Tobias Frere-Jones, Grandview from Aaron Bell that is informed by older German roadway signage and the Mid-Century modern Bierstadt of Steven Matteson—namesake of a suburb of this other Deutsch font city.
Monday 26 April 2021
7x7
and the oscar goes to: highlights and surprises from the 2021 Academy Awards
zauberwald: Robert Mertl’s forest photographer captures the aesthetic I aim for during my woodland walks
canzone russa italianizzata: the Russian Italo-Pop musical stylings of Alla Pugachevacards against humanity: the brilliantly sullen poetry of John Giorno
yahoo the destroyer: maligning the cannibalised early internet for contributing to the Digital Dark Ages via Waxy—plus a different approach to archiving going forward
the trouble with tribbles: marketing Flatcat as one’s next robotic feline companion
art of the title: film lettering over the decades
Saturday 17 April 2021
he who waits behind the wall
First invoked by name in a 2004 on-line form for creepypasta and attributing it to the influence of the eldritch, Lovecraftian primordial deities, Zalgo text, epithet above, refers to the certain aesthetic of overly adorning and stacking text with diacritical marks to produce a glitchy, destructively (sometimes maliciously in the form of copy-bomb and can result in transmission errors) cursed, spooky effect (see also)—with the reader either interpreting their computer or brain malfunctioning, overcome by the preternatural and unfathomable.
catagories: ๐ฃ, myth and monsters, networking and blogging, ⓦ
7x7
cortรจge: the custom Land Rover hearse that will convey Prince Philip on his funeral procession
whiter-than-white: ultra-reflective coating (previously) could help cool the climate—via Slashdoteboracia: housing developer Keepmoat Holmes discovers sprawling Roman ruins in North Yorkshire
elenctic debate: honing one’s critical thinking with the Socratic method
emojinal rescue: the Unicode subcommittee reconvenes, heralding the coming of new glyphs
ramshackle: illustrations of antient structures that survived the Great Fire of London before they were ultimately demolished
pleurants: bright and bold floral urns for cremains
Friday 16 April 2021
9x9
oh, i travel—a sort of licenced troubleshooter: a lexicon of the Bond franchise in all its forms
riptide: an homage to the pre-code (previously) Hollywood actress Norma Shearer
dead pilots’ society: CBS Summer Playhouse and similar vehicles were venues for anthologies of failed television shows—see also
la vie รฉlectrique: Albert Robida’s 1893 vision of the future includes a remote courtship by means of a tรฉlephonoscopethe sensational she-hulk: Marvel comics hand-lettering from Reagan Ray—previously
buzz-saw: the ancient shark-like Helicoprion had spiral tooth-whorls
reinventing the wheel: engineers in Seoul develop transforming, load-bearing tyre using principles of origami—see previously
oh—the pint pot, half-a-pint, gill pot, half-a-gill-quarter-gill, nippikin and the brown bowl: conventional measurements of liquid (see also) anticipated the next in a binary fashion
shaguar: if Austin Powers were to be revived today, he would have been cryogenically frozen in 1991
Friday 9 April 2021
7x7
tsugite: software that generates traditional Japanese joinery (previously) that can be 3D printed or precision cut
prince albert in a can: a collection of fish tin labels from a digital museum dedicated to the Portuguese canning industry
cosmic nature: artist Yayoi Kusama exhibits at New York’s Botanical Garden
tune-dex: the real-fake book of jazz standards, essential to musicians in the 1970s
dingbat: thirty select works of Mid-Century Modern print for inspiration
beer is proof god loves us and wants us to be happy: brew theorems post US National New Beers’ Eve ahead of the anniversary of rescinding parts of the Volstead Act that allowed for consumption of higher proof beer
ukiyo-e: the unintentional ASMR of a master printmaker at work
Thursday 1 April 2021
an elaborate hoax
The fictive archipelago shaped like a semi-colon and full of puns related to printing and fonts, the Guardian featured a seven-page supplement (see also) celebrating a decade of independence for the nation of San Serriffe, discussing the island’s history, economy and tourism with in-depth articles. Originally it was to be positioned in the Atlantic neighbouring Tenerife but a tragic airline disaster a few days prior prompted the newspaper’s editorial board to move it to the Indian Ocean, near the Seychelles. In an era before desktop publishing and the wide adoption of home computers, the terminology of typefaces was specialists’ jargon and most readers would have missed the jokes.
Wednesday 24 March 2021
open-apple q
Sunday 28 February 2021
hypodermic
Via Duck Soup, in a fascinating parallel analysis of the vetting process (though the stakes are much lower) that underpins which emojis enter into common parlance and how they are rendered across platforms (see previously) and approval of new vaccines and other medical interventions, though the correspondence is of course heavily weighted against the former with science and evidence-based research, taste, lobbying, politics and shifting cultural norms play a part in both, which can in usual cases take years. The original syringe and needle emoji dates back to 1999, adopted as a Unicode standard in 2010, and was meant to encourage blood donation in Japan, later used a shorthand to urge people to get tested for communicable diseases, retaining the drops of blood throughout most iterations and incarnations. Now, however, the emoji is being modified slightly to remove those drops of blood (a separate drop of blood emoji was approved in 2019 to represent both donation drives and mensuration and ๐ ฐ️, ๐, ๐ ฑ️ and ๐ พ️ already refer to blood types) across most platforms—like what immunologists hope for adapting existing vaccines to combat new variants as they arise in an expedited fashion since the template is already established, and communicate vaccination status and acceptance and support. It may seem trivial but the ability to signal is immensely important and a lot of people have a lot invested the success of the campaign that these symbols represent.
Saturday 20 February 2021
๐ป
Via Spoon & Tamago, we learn that graphic designer Kenya Hara and Nippon Design Centre studios have released over two-hundred-fifty pictograms reflecting Japanese culture and lifestyle in support of the eventual return of tourism free for all to use. We especially liked the icons for sumo wrestling (็ธๆฒ) and udon (wheat flour noodles, ใใฉใ) Some are even animated to convey the ritual relaxation of bathing at an onsen (see previously). Much more to explore at the links above and at the Experience Japan project website.
Thursday 18 February 2021
optimisation of manual labour
Eighteen types of elemental motions to study the economy of movement and exertion in the workplace as with a flow-chart, therblig units are intended as controls for eliminating unneeded steps. Created by industrial psychologists Lillian Moller Gilbreth and Frank Bunker Gilbreth (as near reversals of their surname), they first appeared in a 1915 trade paper article as “the elements of a cycle of decisions and motions” the scheme famously and indelibly suggesting that it be common protocol that a surgeon is handed their implements and that various checklist are put in place. Purposefully, the last step prior to execution is the admonition “to think” (not depicted as a diagrammatic symbol) rather than the first.