A few weeks ago my colleague, Doug Avery recommended I check out a book that he recently read called the Geometry of Design. The book was incredibly interesting, illustrating how mathematics can enhance design and take it to a whole new level. A whole section of the book showed the geometric foundation behind the design of the Volkswagen Beetle.

If you aren’t aware I had a very rocky but passionate obsession with the Volkswagen Beetle from 1986- 2007 and a very intimate relationship with one for about 9 years. Though the car painfully fell apart one piece at a time, the design always managed to make me Happy. Every day I would walk out my front door and see that beetle and honest to truth (as my grandmother says), that damn car smiled at me. It was the happiest little vehicle in the world despite its laundry-list of mechanical problems. The bubbly round dashboard, the perfectly perky antenna, every inch of that car brought joy to my life.

Stefan Sagmeister does an amazing Ted Talk about how Design can make you happy. He lists all the times in his life that he can remember design making him happy and in an exercise I decided to repeat for myself I realized more than 80% of my design related memories centered around joyful Volkswagen beetle experiences.

There are more memories than I can name here, but they ranged from staring down at dune a the beach to see that feisty little guy proudly dwarfed by a surfboard strapped to it, to the animated reactions of my high school friend’s faces lighting up the first time I turned on my interior lights to show them the violet blue dashboard controls (which in 1999 was very exciting).

Doug recently wrote a spectacular blog post where he shows how he took what he learned from the book Geometry of Design and used it on a recent logo design for Viget’s new Pointless Corp. The transformation from sketchy hunchback bear to refined geometric bear is inspiring… but what really struck me was the finished product. The final bear logo makes me happy in a way that is only comparable to the way my Volkswagen Beetle made me feel happy. You should check it out.

I like to write about what is currently going on in my life, and since my free time the last week has been spent on building-out the new version of this site’s design… I’m getting antsy. Growing up my mom had a hard time keeping me from peaking at my Christmas presents and… gosh help me… I have a hard time keeping surprise parties a secret from my friends. So to satisfy this urge to blow it all early.. I decided to give you all a sneak peak on my influences and inspirations me when working on the new design… without actually showing you the design.

Thinking personal website redesign is a daunting task…”Should it reflect who I am? Should it be conceptual? Maybe it should just reflect what styles I like? Wait… who the hell am I? What DO I like?” If you have ever faced the challenge of your own personal site redesign you know… it can make you go absolutely INSANE.

So this time around I focused on design styles I admire and typography, since it is what I talk about most on this blog. I tried to marry the elements that I love about print design with the elements that work beautifully on the web. To give you a sneak peak I retroactively went back through all my bookmarks and paper samples and clippings to put together an inspiration board.

Click the thumbnail to see it larger:

As I mentioned before, I am currently working feverishly to try and get the redesign of this site up and running. After hundreds of font explorations, more than 60 comps, and countless hours of me incoherently nudging Jim at 1am pleading for advice I have made up my mind on a final(ish) homepage. I want to share with you one of the treasures that I discovered during this laborious process.

I did some pretty in-depth typeface research this time around. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I knew that once I saw the right “badass font” I would know it. On my monumental quest I began to connect a few dots, realizing a common thread between many of favorite script typefaces… they are designed by Alejandro Paul. Who is Alejandro? He is one of the most badass typeface designers in the world.

Ask any designer what their favorite Script is and their answer may be accompanied by a sigh… because when it comes to the classic type classification, there just aren’t a lot of good one’s to choose from. Stodgy and tired, many of the most accessible scripts have been beaten to death. Edwardian? Put that old man to rest because there are sexy new scripts in town.

With passionate swashes and striking swoops Alejandro’s typefaces are made for the digital age, looking as fantastic on the screen as they do in print. Many of his works have a story, a personality that makes them leap off the layout, demand that you to dance, and then leaves you begging for more.

Browse Veer’s Umbrella collection and you will find that many of the most exquisite specimens belong to Alejandro, surf the web and you will find that some of the best web designs feature his work. One of his most popular fonts, Candy Script, can be seen on signage and displays all over and Carsonified , a well known web agency, uses it in their logo (check their rebranding process and Candy Script font explorations). Over the holidays I went bonkers with spotting Feel Script in holiday ads on TV and in newspapers. Ministry Script is selectively featured on one of my favorite site design’s, Made in England By Gentleman and the very majestic Burgues Script recently won the prestigious Type Directors Club certificate of excellence.

Buffet Script was the first to catch my eye. I resisted its purchase for as long as I could possibly hold out, but when I finally gave in… it consumed my free time for days. The alternates and ligatures are just so fantastic. Just about any word can be transformed into a beautiful piece of art using these wonderfully styled glyphs. The only problem with this typeface is a personal one… I love it so much, I can not decide where I want to ever use it, and to this day have only managed to use it only on this desktop wallpaper.

In an interview by Andy Polaine for Desktop Magazine Alejandro says

I love the idea of a font surprising its user. With Affair the surprises I made were mostly ligatures, tons of them. With Burgues, the surprises had more to do with ornamentation, where a letter, or a combination of letters, would flare itself into different strange and beautiful calligraphic shapes.”

Burgues may be my new favorite Alejandro Paul typeface. The flourishes are breathtaking, I can loose myself in this script for hours. According to the user guide this script is

…an ode to the late 19th century American calligrapher Louis Madarasz, whose legend-ary pen movements have inspired schools of penmanship for over 100 years now, and whose talent has inspired some people to call him “the most skillful penman the world has ever known”

Though Burgues is my favorite for now it may not be long before his next creation sweeps me off my feet. A see a sneak preview of Semilla on his flickr feed has me all tween-age girl giddy over that new freaking typeface, describing its ligatures my voice starts to get high and my hands start to tremble. Yes, it is that awesome, no I may not be OK.

Some great links to check out:

Alejandro’s Flickr Stream

Sudtipos

The Alejandro Paul Script Collection on Veer