Fontstruct is an online font creator that will let you build your own modular font, save it and have the ability to share it with other users. You can also download other users font creations. Sign up and give it a try.

This is a font I built a few months back title “Viva Machina”, please feel to download and use it.

The voice is a little creepy, but the video is quite good. Reminds me of machobox, but with more 3D.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o1U4o1bc2k

See if you can do this without reading the article (link at the bottom of the page). I got 7/10. C’s get degrees, right?

http://www.iliveonyourvisits.com/helvetica/ 

EMU Friends of the Library need our help. They are having a contest and need us to do the following:

1. design a bookmark
2. design for a 11″ x 8″ canvas bag (2-3 colours) 
3. design a new logo for them

Each category will win a $100 gift certificate. These designs will give back to the EMU community as they are using them for a fund raiser to make the library better. Not only do you have a chance to win some money but you have the opportunity to give back to EMU. There are a few restrictions you must remember:

• bookmark and canvas bag must say “EMU Friends of the Library”
• your name and graduation year will appear on the design
• you can  have a printed piece to put in your portfolio
• they really want your design to “POP”
• let’s show the library how supportive we are

if you need to ask my any questions, please e-mail me or reply to this. my e-mail is jalliso1@emich.eduif you would like to visit EMU friends of the Library website go to http://brand.emich.edu/fol

http://www.stepinsidedesign.com/STEPMagazine/Article/28816I liked this article because I thought it related to a lot of Emily’s posts concentrating on Comic Sans…and I thought to myself why do we have so many fonts? Is it harder for designers these days with 200,00 choices?  

I have always been a fan of Stefan Sagmeister’s work. As part of Adobe’s features of different artists/designers this short film was created to feature his work. He takes things to quite the extreme for his work, you can call it dedication or crazy. He has had interns carve his skin for a poster. He gained 23 pounds for another poster. No matter what, the work is good, thoughtful and worth a look.

As a side note to the films. Most of the films are done by Hillman Curtis. He is originally a new media/web designer, he applies several of the principals of compressing/creating new media for the web to this particular series of films. The idea is that you don’t have lots of movement, slow movements or shots where majority of the subject matter stays the same, allowing compression codecs to not have to constantly replace pixels (which equals more memory). All of the films are worth watching.

Honest
Josh Davis
Mark Romanek
Milton Glaser
Pentagram
Paula Scher
David Carson
James Victore

okay i hope i got your attention. you need to come to the aiga meeting this week (on thursday) at 8:00….

we need you to come out and brain storm some ideas for the portfolio review that will be held at EMU

this year.  you need to come out, its pretty fun. get involved…. care.

There is a little girl back home (in Brockville Ontario) that was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Her name is Lilly and she is one-years-old. There is going to be an art exhibition in Toronto where all art sold will go towards her medical bills as she comes from a family that isn’t well off. I’m looking for people who would be interested in donating paintings or creating paintings, photos, posters, ect. for the exhibition - but there’s a catch: the exhibition is called “Lilies for Lilly” so all art should be of a lily or lilies. If you can have the items for me before February 16th 2008 that would be sweet. If you can frame it that would be even better but if not I can pay for it to be framed.

Canadian Sarah (ask around if you don’t know who I am)

I usually don’t talk too much about my work, but a student recently mentioned that they wish they knew more about my process and my work. So I decided I may be able to use this as a means of teaching about process. So here is a quick post about some work in progress, a postcard for an upcoming exhibition at the Detroit Industrial Project space at the Russell Industrial complex.

I usually start with generating ideas or methods that guide the design. The show is called crisis, which according to the short summary/curatorial statement is defined as a state of change/flux/etc. (that summary doesn’t quite do it justice, but it works). Often when I am doing client type work (like this, where there isn’t much time to design), I use one of 2 strategies. The first, I use adjectives and metaphors to guide either the method or the selection in imagery. The second, I pull things out of a bag of tricks, ideas that were shelved on other projects, or old methods and rationalize the use of them for this particular project. Sometimes it is a combination of both.

There are few other things I do when I make work:
1. I prefer to only use imagery that I create.
2. Whenever possible I use type that I create.
3. If using imagery or type that is not my own, modify it significantly so that it becomes my own.
(I believe that designers should take ownership of what they create, this is my way of doing that.)
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