Notes

Hand Written 2.0

We wrote about Craig Oldham’s Hand Written Letter Project when it was first published in July, 2011 ¹ and again when we received our beautifully crafted books in August, 2011 ². If you didn’t get in early enough to pick up one of the original limited edition, good news, Mr Oldham’s published a second edition. As he puts it:

This new edition features an expanded collection of new correspondence … including more additions from the design world’s leading figures alongside heartfelt correspondence from people who just had something they wished to say.

Meticulously produced, this edition documents the correspondence chronologically presenting each letter uninterupted on it’s individual page. Section sewn into signatures and bound with an 8-page double gatefold cover, this new books presents letter after letter, message after message, presenting the most complete and uninterrupted résumé of the [project] to date.

We’d urge you to pick up a copy second time around, you won’t regret it.

1327182060 · Christopher Murphy · Follow Us on Twitter

New Adventures 2012

With our New Adventures in Web Design Workshop around the corner, we’re looking forward to spending an action-packed session exploring the benefits of a paper-driven design process with our New Adventures workshop participants in the fine city of Nottingham (where, we’re led to believe, Robin Hood lives…).

We’ll be exploring a variety of idea generation techniques - which even include the benefits of using good old-fashioned typewriters - and applying these processes in the service of a brief we’ve conjured up for the day.

We’re looking forward to working with our workshop participants and meeting conference attendees at the conference itself. If you’re around, please do introduce yourself, we’d love to make your acquaintance.

As usual we’ll be the gentlemen wearing tweed. We look forward to seeing you during the conference or, as is statistically likely, at the after party.

See you there.

1326868380 · Christopher Murphy · Follow Us on Twitter

CSSDeck

Combine Dribble with Spinning-Coke-Can CSS antics, and you get CSSDeck, a collection of useful and not-so-useful pretty looking things made out of pure CSS and HTML. Although we probably don’t need a BMW Logo made out of the finest CSS, the showcase does its job in presenting the power and flexibility of the tools currently at the front-end developers disposal.

1326748020 · Nicklas Persson · Follow Us on Twitter

Realtime Edits

Created to show the commitment of the individuals who make Wikipedia what it is, wikistream provides a wonderfully nerdy insight into the velocity of updates of Wikipedia, wikistream is, in their own words:

…an experimental visualization of realtime edits in major language Wikipedias. Every time someone updates or creates a Wikipedia article you will see it ever so briefly in this list. And if someone uploads an image file to the Wikimedia Commons you should see the image background update.

Hopefully wikistream provides a hint of just how active the community is around Wikipedia. wikistream was created to help recognize the level of involvement of folks around the world, who are actively engaged in making Wikipedia the amazing resource that it is.

1326743340 · Nicklas Persson · Follow Us on Twitter

Six Architects

Andrea Gallo’s Six Architects poster series demonstrate a finely tuned eye for detail and abstraction. Every one is elegant in its simplicity and wonderfully restrained.

1326504960 · Christopher Murphy · Follow Us on Twitter

Defend the Internet

You don’t have to be a devoted follower of US politics to have noticed that the US Congress are in the process of trying to pass legislation that, if implemented, will have serious implications for the web as we know it.

In the words of Defend the Internet:

In January 2012, Congress is set to debate the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect-IP Act (PIPA), bills designed to let the US government block websites and information from the public.

Not only does this bill let the government restrict free speech, but also does not effectively address the issue of online piracy, the stated intention of the legislation.

If you’re a citizen of the United States, the site provides an excellent grounding in the problems the bill poses, and gives you clear advice on what you can do to try to stop the bill. For anyone else, the site is an exquisite example of great web design, and worth a visit for this reason alone.

1326483360 · Nicklas Persson · Follow Us on Twitter

The Believer Logger

Longstanding favourite the Believer Magazine recently let their authors free on Tumblr, creating The Believer Logger, Featuring incidental and tangental content relating to articles published in the magazine, it promises to be yet another essential and delightful addition for your trusty RSS reader.

1326480420 · Nicklas Persson · Follow Us on Twitter

Fine Goods

Over a year in the making, Fine Goods is a hypertext boutique featuring fine goods crafted by Montana based hunter, illustrator and designer Rogie King.

Purveying t-shirts, icons and even the odd javascript plugin, the store is worth a visit just to gasp at the attention to detail — evident both in the ornate illustrative style and the satisfying user interactions. Splendid.

1326479580 · Nicklas Persson · Follow Us on Twitter

Marian Collection

Commercial Type’s Marian Collection is a beautifully designed suite of typefaces designed by Paul Barnes that reimagines the classics. As Commercial Type put it:

Marian imagines the classics of the typographic canon reinvented for the contemporary world: Garamond, Granjon, van den Keere, Kiš, Fleischmann, Fournier, Baskerville, Bodoni and Austin restyled and revived.

These aren’t strict revivals, for they are not accurate recreations, nor are they interpretations per se. Instead they reduce the historical models to their basic skeletal forms. Nine serrifed typefaces and one Blackletter reduced to their basic structure. This reduction strips them to their core, whilst at the same time retaining the life and spirit of the letters.

The resulting typefaces are subtle and understated, retaining the ‘essence’ of the original typefaces on which they’re based, spirited revivals that subtly echo the past whilst looking to the future.

1326476700 · Christopher Murphy · Follow Us on Twitter

Moonrise Kingdom

The word on the street has it that none other than Jessica Hische conjured up the titles for Wes Anderson’s new movie Moonrise Kingdom, coming to a silver screen near you soon. Great work Ms Hische, your place on The Walk of Fame is long overdue!

[Via Mr Stocks.]

1326432780 · Christopher Murphy · Follow Us on Twitter