As the US Department of of Defence is apparently moving ahead with renaming it the Department of War—which seems unalloyed with Trump’s aspirations for the Nobel peace prize, the Daily Heller revisits the branding (influenced by ISOTYPE) and logos created by Charles T Coiner for the Civilian Defence Corps of the FDR administration. While it is unclear whether America is in need of a comprehensive corporate identity and national design strategy, it is manifest that the work of graphic designers and communicators help to sanctify the vaunted ideals underpinning democracy and the dignity of the worker in their role as defenders of the values of freedom and equity. More from Print magazine, as well as disambiguating the alphabet soup of agencies, at the link up top.
Monday, 1 September 2025
cdc (12. 690)
Wednesday, 20 August 2025
consumable and durable goods (12. 660)
We are directed to a rather engaging evolution of a logo via the Chicago-based trade journal, formerly published under the titles Business Equipment and National Stationer, Office Appliances: The Magazine of Office Equipment, in regular circulation from 1904 to 1993.
The long history documents changing styles in formatting and typography in pace with technology, from neoclassical to Art Deco to Bauhaus and beyond but the key, the work space conclave, is ever-present.
These cover-to-cover periodicals come courtesy of the Internet Archives’ microfiche scanning operations, which one can watch live with the accompaniment of lofi soundtrack and a sidebar of the latest digitalisation, now particularly focused on livestreaming the release and preservation of US government records with off-hour montages of highlights from their public domain collections. More from Tenth Letter of the Alphabet at the link up top.
synchronoptica
one year ago: cellular pathology (with synchronopticรฆ) plus vice president Nelson Rockefeller
thirteen years ago: the German energy revolution
seventeen years ago: an old car tuckers out
Wednesday, 23 July 2025
henohenomoheji (12. 600)
Convinced that this subject was one that we had visited before for its relation to emoticons, emoji and ASCII art and surprised to find that we had not, we enjoyed this short introduction to the generic human face made up of hiragana letter forms, seven characters (arranged to spell out the title ใธใฎใธใฎใใธใ). Originally the doodle was a classroom exercise for school children of the late Edo era, following the turn of the century reform that reduced the syllabary down to forty eight characters from hundreds as a sort of mnemonic device for reenforcing valid glyphs out of the many retired ones, the characters traditionally sung as they were written. The nose, jaw and left cheek would be pronounced moji (ๆๅญ in katana) as in the above “picture writing.”
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronopticรฆ), the Commodore A1000, dark oxygen, everything is context plus attempts to keep Trump off the ballot and Biden on it
Sunday, 20 July 2025
8x8 (12. 594)
; ): the correct use of the semicolon—see also
if you try to humanise the place, you will lose your mind: a journalist reflects on her unconscionable trip to Dubai
dream logic: the surreal illustrations of Garrett Davis
bubble house: space age, Mid-Century Modern brownstone off Central Park on the market for the first time in half a century—see also

jumbotron: Coldplay concert kiss-cam incident (and memes) underscore the practice’s awkward history
kiss of death: US vice president flew to Montana for a secret meeting with News Corp head Rupert Murdoch, aged 94, to discuss reporting of Trump—maybe he dies soon like when Vance had an audience with the Pope—or fawning MAGA fan Truss with the Queen
the only free cheese is in a mousetrap: the Ukrainian equivalent of the English idiom there is no such thing as a free lunch
Friday, 18 July 2025
⚐ (12. 589)
Reminiscent of the flag of South Vietnam, carrying nuanced meanings for the diaspora outside the communist nation and sadly coopted with little context by some pro-Trump elements, we learn via Web Curios that there’s a comparable battle over the flag of Iran. While the official tricolour adopted after the Iranian revolution of 1979 bearing the emblem in the centre with the name of God stylised as both a sword and a tulip, symbolising bravery and martyrdom. Other groups outside of Iran prefer the older banner of the deposed Shah, the personal flag of the Pahlavi dynasty with the ancient symbols of the Sun and Lion that goes back to Byzantine times, both in the pro-monarchy movement and those protesting the current regime as authoritarian as more inclusive. The older flag’s association with conservative monarchists movements and regime change moreover apparently informed Israel’s decision to name its war the with country Rising Lion. Yet other groups are partial to the three coloured bands with no shield as a way to acknowledge diversity of political allegiances and was historically championed by pro-constitutional, democratic counter-revolutionaries before outside intervention. The pictured further alternative is charged with the slogan Woman Life Freedom that emerged out of the 2022 protests that arose after Kurdish Mahsa Zhina Amini died in the custody of the Guidance Patrol, the religious morality police for not conforming to government standards of modesty in dress, with the message rendered in the same early Persian script, Kufic—cuneiform adapted to Arabic letters, that embroiders the official flag’s fimbriation as the takbฤซr (ุชَْูุจِูุฑ ).
Monday, 26 May 2025
open source (12. 491)
Echoing today’s previous posting, we very much enjoyed making the acquaintance of an omnipresence and prolific graphic design artist and illustrator called Takashi Mifune—whose work, anonymous for its ubiquity and described as unpinning “social infrastructure,” has influenced Japan’s public aesthetic and visual vernacular. Though not unique in offering clip-art, the website maintained by Mifune Irasutoya (ใใใใจใ, illustration shop) makes his cast of iconic characters and symbols freely available to for personal and commercial applications, with the large range covering every conceivable situation and occupation—from the everyday to the niche—and consistency of style (see previously) has garnered the artist’s momentum and reputation as the standard for signage.
Featuring highly specialised jobs, current events, cultural neologisms, maladies, warnings, restrictions and artefacts with far more briskness and particularity than other catalogues of stock images, inspiring contests to recreate works of art with Mifune’s drawings, subject matter easily summoned up from the commonplace to centrifuges, Prototaxites (an extinct plant life-form between fungi and trees), traditional dress of La Sape subculture, wisdom teeth, both bipedal and quadrupedal versions of chupacabras and the Antikythera mechanism. Much more from It’s Nice That at the link up top.
you may need rendering support (12. 490)
Despite being last updated in 2012, the announcement from Japanese wireless carrier Docomo (a subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) that it is officially discontinuing support for its emoji set marks the end of an era that spanned decades and played a foundational role in emoji communication and native texting environments. Beginning in 1995 with the simple inclusion of a ❤︎ icon that could be displayed on pagers (see previously)—and the user outcry when the option was quietly removed in a subsequent update demonstrated to the concern public interest not only in symbolic shorthand but also a way to accent missives when not communicating face-to-face, the reaction informing the glyph collection to come. In 1999, Docomo introduced a set of one hundred seventy-six character syllabary of supplemental monochrome, twelve-by-twelve pixel icons designed by Shigetaka Kurita (ๆ ็ฐ ็ฉฃๅด), which inspired by universal street signage, pictograms and the mood and emotional cues employed for manga protagonists called manpu (ๆผซ็ฌฆ, a bead of sweat to signal accomplishment or apprehension), created the base lexicon and grammar that Unicode adopted later. Although limited to the network, the emoji set, growing colourised and more articulated, saw its legacy enlivened by platforms with greater interoperability and customisation and is honoured as a linguistic fossil and the emoji equivalent of Latin.
synchronoptica
one year ago: more adventures in the Thรผringer Forest (with synchronoptica) plus a notable Shiba Inu passes away
seven years ago: between distraction and anxiety, Dune product tie-ins plus digitising the Munch Museum
eight years ago: Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Trump calls NATO partners deadbeats plus preparing for a short sabbatical
nine years ago: shooting stars on demand, Wundarr the Aquarian plus rabbits doing violence in medieval manuscripts
ten years ago: a visit to the Neckar valley plus assorted links to revisit
Saturday, 24 May 2025
sigils and signs (12. 486)
Having previously looked at other visual language compliers expressed through artistic elements and other than the usual strings of functions and conditions of coding, and very much reenforces overdue acknowledgement that the jargon of computing can act as a gatekeeper and that unnatural language can create an out-group (see also) for whom these incantations seem like wizardry, and given our preoccupation with secret signs, we were very much
intrigued by this mystical platform of magic circles, via Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest (a lot more to explore there) under development by Denis M Moskowitz. The sampled, quicksort spell is a rendering of the Euclidean algorithm for calculating the greatest common divisor of two numbers—that which divides them both without a remainder—a benchmark test for the logic of a new programming language with an intuitively visual component. Moskowitz has also created a character set of glyphs or monograms after the chaos magic of Austin Osman Spare (previously here and here) whose seals unlock the basic grammar of coding. Much more at the links above.
⁓ (12. 484)
Although also slightly peeved that the em-dash has become the signature punctuation of artificial intelligence chatbots (see also, scroll down for an act of malicious non-compliance with an agent) and sad to see the way I write coopted—though maybe leaning too heavily on a brittle linkage and perhaps should rely more on brackets or the semicolon, I was naturally intrigued by this proposal for a separator available exclusively for human use to signal that it was not penned by machine, the am-dash, via Web Curios and as in cogito ergo sum. Superficially like the title swung dash (used primarily, however, to set apart a list of alternatives or approximates or in dictionary entries to avoid reprinting the term being defined), the am-dash would be but of a restricted character set—see also.
First widely used in the Nicholas Okes’ publication of Shakespeare’s plays to capture pauses, interruption and epiphany of the staged performances in the early seventeenth century, Jonathan Swift’s 1733 verse On Poetry later encapsulated the style as:
Blot out, correct, insert, refine,
Enlarge, diminish, interline;
Be mindful, when Invention fails;
To scratch your Head, and bite your Nails.
Your poem finish’d, next your Care
Is needful, to transcribe it fair.
In modern Wit all printed Trash, is
Set off with num’rous Breaks⸺and Dashes—
Much more at the links above.
Friday, 23 May 2025
11x11 (12. 481)
ฮฝ octantis: astronomers discover a tight binary star system with a lone exoplanet wedged in the middle
{sum free sets}: Cambridge graduate student proves an conjecture of Paul Erdลs on the limits of the additive property—via Damn Interesting
gorgoneion: the backstory of Medusa
market instability: complaining that negotiations have stalled, Trump threatens to impose a fifty-percent tariff on EU exports to the US
ambigram: more invertible messages—made by impossible letters (see previously here and here)
the old, old, very old man: the sudden death of super-centenarian Tom Parr in 1635 illuminates our long quest for longevity—see also
marked decline: the precipitous drop in the use of semicolons—with a quiz to celebrate its proper placement
urban renewal: arborists are planting giant sequoia (previously) in blighted Detroit neighbourhoods—via Kottke
pandemonium: when the pantheon of gods and goddesses came into the world, they already had company with a multiplicity of daemons acting through human agents
exchange programme: US Department of Homeland Security revokes Harvard’s ability to enrol foreign students
brown dwarf: in the distant past, Jupiter was nearly twice its present size with a much stronger magnetic field, revealed by the orbital dynamics of its constellation of satellites—see previously
Tuesday, 20 May 2025
11x11 (12. 472)
higher power: traditionally anodyne, new Chinese spaceflight mission patches (see also) might betray some secrets
triple word score: fun variants, house rules and more Scrabble-related news—see previously
a stra ze neca: no, the multinational pharmaceutical concern name does not mean “a road to death” in Latin
hamburgervons: a flip book of font specimens to build the perfect typeface—the heading a typographer’s tool to test layout and legibility—see also
revenge of the sith: a retrospective for the prequel twenty years on—see also here and herethere i ruined it: interesting mashup of US national anthem to the tune of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun”
kyphosis bicyclistarum: an 1893 warning from the Lancet for wheelmen on the bad posture and stoop that frequent cycling can cause—see also
sunny days: after Trump defunds PBS and NPR, Netflix is championing Sesame Street
micro-camper: a well-appointed mobile tiny home in the bed of kei truck—via Things Magazine (much more to discover there)
fan theory: Doctor Who’s “Interstellar Song Contest”—Eurovision counter programming—teases the return of a classic arch-villainess
pinball wizard: the 1976 NBC gameshow flop, The Magnificent Marble Machine, with celebrity players
niallia tiangongensis: evolution on display in novel bacteria found aboard China’s space-station—via Damn Interesting
synchronoptica
one year ago: more on the Kessler Effect (with synchronoptica), AI overviews plus two classes of typos
seven years ago: Pentecost, for-profit colleges plus a ride on a steam locomotive
eight years ago: reforming the US electoral college, the Global Seed Vault is flooding, protesting Trump’s bribes plus an AI names bespoke colours
nine years ago: a visit to Tintagel
ten years ago: a time lapse of climate change, assorted links to revisit plus the making of The Shining
Sunday, 4 May 2025
11x11 (12. 431)
hot, cold, clash and burn: some performances from candidates for the 2025 Dance Your PhD contest with real EuroVision vibes—see previously
man in motion: a biography of Eadweard Muybridge (previously) as a graphic novel
pc connection: the raccoon mascot that made the catalogue stand out amongst industry uniformity—via Nag on the Lake
popemobile: the pontiff’s conveyance used for his 2014 visit to Bethlehem to be converted into a mobile health clinic for Gaza
oaf of office: arguing that due process is cumbersome, Trump defers to his legal team on whether it his duty to uphold the constitution
pamflyt compiled of cheese, contayninge the differences, nature, qualities, and goodnes, of the same: an early Renaissance book on the staple food digitised and made available to the public
architecture of choice: AI buttons and the fat-finger economy pushing redesign and showhorning of non-options into everything
sustained presence: Israel expands operations, evictions in the occupied territory
papabili: the College of Cardinals’ report and coverage of the upcoming conclave—via Web Curios
mingkwai: the rediscovery of an incredible antique mechanical typewriter prototype for printing Chinese characters—via Neatorama—with a video demonstration
marge inalia: alert the grammar police, the Errorist strikes again
synchronoptica
one year ago: Expo '74 (with synchronoptica), the Cabbage Patch Kids’ maternity ward, assorted links worth revisiting plus the Grammies
seven years ago: more links to enjoy, lampooning mid-morning television, doggie bags plus election by Borda count
eight years ago: potential jail time for protesting the US attorney general, the Cornell carillon plays a tribute to the Grateful Dead plus even more links
nine years ago: gorillas sing little tunes as they eat, maps of Middle Earth, a market hall in Rotterdam plus a popular French tonic wine
ten years ago: Hee-Haw and the cancellation of Star Trek plus utopian thinking
Monday, 28 April 2025
10x10 (12. 420)
america’s war: a special report from the Verge for the fiftieth anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
leaflet: an Art Nouveau study of botanical forms and their application in decor—see previously
mangajin: an appreciation of the month English-language publication for students of Japanese language and culture—full archives from the entire run from 1988 to 1997 here
do: inspirational words from artist Sol LeWitt to fellow creative pioneer Eva Hesse
chisanbop: the Korean technique of fingermath
i have to push the pram a lot: Monty Python and the Holy Grail at fifty
animal spirits: what felines, bovines, porcines, etc on the label say about wine quality
you wouldn’t right-click a car: US anti-piracy campaign filled with hypocrisy, including a stolen font—see also
bus error collective: a WSIWYG primer on oscilloscope music—via Waxy
worst one-hundred days: assessments of Trump first months in office for his second term—more here and here
synchronptica
one year ago: Pennsylvania 6-5000 (with synchronoptica) plus naming world wars
seven years ago: a corollary to the Bechdel test plus a visit to Stockheim
eight years ago: archaeology with trace DNA, Islamic gateways plus responding to nuclear extortion
nine years ago: crowd control robots, language acquisition plus a hand-held DNA sequencer
ten years ago: visiting FDR’s Georgia retreat, ribald limericks, assorted links to revisit plus pontoon bridges to alleviate traffic congestion
Wednesday, 23 April 2025
10x10 (12. 405)
hug, marry, kill: internet roasts muttonhead JD Vance for his audience with Pope Francis—more here
kegsbreath: US defence secretary poised to be replaced and other news and developments from Superpunch—see more
trump slump: populist politicians over the globe are distancing themselves from MAGA
yolo: search data for Anglophone texting abbreviations
oh aunt jess: Angela Lansbury in fine art—via Miss Cellania
technics: an obstacle course for LEGO walkers
zwiebelfisch: a treasury of printers’ terminology, as in the German for a character misprinted with a dif๐erent font, and more including wayzgoose
one if by land, two if by sea: Heather Cox Richardson speaking at the two-hundred fiftieth anniversary of the midnight ride of Paul Revere
education for death: Walt Disney’s 1943 film on how fascists are made
a good book can help us weather the storm: Francis’ defence of literature for spiritual and mental enlightenment—see also this papal playlist
Monday, 14 April 2025
9x9 (12. 391)
field of vision: the evolution of eyes branching out as on a tree of life
land-grant college: the federal-funding based model for American post-secondary education is based on a deliberate post-World War II decision to outsource expertise and experimentation rather than compartmentalise it within government consortia
habeas corpus: relenting to the idea that some people have no rights is siding with authoritarianism and hoping you aren’t next
under construction: transform any modern website a late 90s GeoCities masterpiece—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest
thank you easter bunny—bwak, bwak: more on the controversial, re-constructed, retcon of the holiday mascot
⌂: the tiny house in the middle of IBM’s eight-bit character set, adopted by PC clones with the 1981 Code Page 437—see previously—and its possible relation to Blissymbolics
rinki-tink in oz: deportation and administrative oversight in L Frank Baum’s paracosm
uniwersytet latajฤ cy: US institutions higher education can defy Trump’s crackdown by outreach and going underground, as Polish universities did under Communism—via Kottke
recaptcha: corvids demonstrate surprising mental acuity for identifying outlier shapes and geometric regularity—via MetaFilter
synchronoptica
one year ago: St Liduina (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth revisiting
seven years ago: US refusing Syrian refugees, American kakistocracy plus some local prehistory
eight years ago: bunking busting bombs, the White House Easter Egg Roll plus a grim future vision of US national parks
nine years ago: animated viruses, solar sails, more chatbot failures plus a walk from Wiesbaden to Mainz
eleven years ago: Ukrainian break-away republics
Friday, 11 April 2025
use case (12. 384)
Keith Houston of Shady Characters, who has just published a new book on the evolution of the face with tears of joy emoji (previously), reports on their repurposing as featured in a new streaming series (which we’ve started) that explores incel and misogynistic online culture through in-group coding. Such coopting is nothing new (see previously here and here) but the collective autobiographical vocabulary is noteworthy if not dispiriting, like using ๐ฏ for the prevalent idea that twenty percent of men attract eighty percent of women and thus the latter are blameworthy for their lack of success. Kidney beans are somehow also a part of the mansophere. In related news, Houston also highlights how all office chatter is the same and peppered with emoji—no matter the context or gravity—through the lens of the “Houthi PC small group”—which was not so small even before the accidental inclusion of a journalist into the war room—with reactions like ๐๐บ๐ธ๐ฅ and ๐ celebrating airstrikes and potentially compromising national security.
basket case (12. 383)
Though resigned to a therapeutic activity, the art of basket-weaving is something unlike other textile crafts that defies mechanisation and automation and is being championed clubs and consortia all over embracing these ancient ways with both materially traditional and novel substrates, rallying around the ๐งบ emoji to express affiliation, included in 2018 rollout. There was some discussion a few years ago about adding a truck emoji as a concession to conservative Americans, a symbolic move that probably would have garnered more mileage and not seen as a bow to tribalism—see also here and here—the pickup created in 2020 in response being seen as too twee and the expectation was for some monster all-terrain SUV. Originating with the asylum system of the nineteenth century with institutionalised individuals mildly dehumanised with such activities that were regarded as childlike and busy-work, basket weaving was somewhat rehabilitated following World War I as occupational therapy for returning soldiers suffering from shell-shock (what we would now recognise as post-traumatic stress disorder), the title epithet probably comes from not the activity but rather the wicker wheelchairs provided to recovering and disabled service members—like the etymology of gone to hell in a hand basket stems from being carted off on a litter. Find out more about those retaking the craft and carrying it forward from It’s Nice That at the link above.
Thursday, 10 April 2025
9x9 (12. 381)
domestic box office: in response to escalating tariffs, China is curtailing the number of American films screened in the country
redeployment: decision to reposition US troops stationed in Poland causing concern
dixonary: improprieties in pronunciation among New Englanders
๐ฆ: the Latin alphabet expressed as hieroglyphics
now is a great time to buy—$djt: social media posts and a spike in options activity may indicate insider trading within the administration
ื₀: physicist Dominic Walliman charts out the fields of mathematics and how the academic informs application
from the gigantic bones displayed at roncesvalles: an adjective that should be brought part back into use
a man, a plan: US defence secretary floats idea of reopening mothball military bases from the 1989 invasion of Panama
trading floor: the history of the ticker-tape machine
Saturday, 5 April 2025
greed (12. 368)
The unapologetically bold and unyielding typeface by Neil Summerour for foundry Positype—perfect for this twentytwentyfive moment—is based on the typography of US banknotes, originally planned as a series of fonts illustrating the Seven Deadly Sins. Released on inauguration day, that singular vice seemed an all encompassing symbol for capturing the enshitifying gilded age we’ve been thrust into. Among the challenges the designer faced (aside from possible arrest from this administration for defacing legal tender) was crafting a lower case equivalent since dollar bills are all-caps, ANNUIT COEPTIS—God favours our undertaking!—no need to shout, NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM, and crafting a complete set of numerals outside of 0, 1, 2 and 5. The typeface has the complete set of Latin glyphs and diacritics for every language, including Vietnamese and others often left out of bespoke fonts not as a testament of universality but rather to be inclusive. More from Print Magazine at the link up top.
Thursday, 3 April 2025
10x10 (12. 360)
kapmifmif: a study morphological emic distribution classes through a constructed language—see previously
murder on flight 502: the star-studded 1975 television disaster movie gets the Poseidon’s Underworld treatment
blanket rate: bad assumptions and arithmetic informs Trump tariff regime, which is tanking markets globally
mira calligraphiae monumenta: paging through a sixteenth century illuminated model book on scribal excellence rebelling against the standardisation of the printing press—with embellishes reminiscent of the Voynich manuscript and Codex Seraphinianus
clickens: judge chicken portraits on various personality traits and harness the wisdom of the masses—via Kottke
salmon run: a beautifully crafted early home arcade game speaks to swimming upstream
sala di consultazione: free access to the Vatican Library’s digital archives
elbows up: Canada plans retaliation over US punitive duty deal plus GOP senators side with Democrats to rebuke the proposal to levy additional tariffs on its northern neighbour
real id: US government is beginning to require an internal passport, which is not automatically issued
mezameta: the role of katakana in loan words, gairaigo, scientific binomials and transcription and the problem with conveying the shifting meaning of woke
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica), standard lunar time plus vulgar expressions of indifference
seven years ago: Iran’s faux Western fast foods, bi-lingual Braille plus a North American medicinal plant map
eight years ago: more links to enjoy
nine years ago: vintage Canadian tourist posters plus a Rosary ring
ten years ago: the Anthropocene plus the architecture of folklore