Badass Ideas

Last year at SXSW I got to see the world premiere of Gary Hustwit’s Documentary “Helvetica”. I was one of the first in line and amazingly stoked to not only see it, but be in the audience with David Carson. My Typeface fetish hit the big screen… at my web Designer’s Disney World.

Recently I wrote a post about the brand of Obama, and how I am very excited to see the practice of nice design being used in a political campaign.

Today I found this fantastic post on the Helvetica Film blog where Gary points out that the font used by the Obama Campaign is Gotham, a typeface originally commissioned by GQ magazine and partially inspired the New York Port Authority signage. There is a clip of Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frer-Jones talking about the process that lead to the “font of change” that I am going to feature here for your Typeface enjoyment.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ow6ajKO0XsM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Summer needs to hurry the heck up. For me it means weekend trips to the beach to join Jim surfing. Though it is cold outside that doesn’t deter him from hitting the waves or the web to search out the latest in the surfing community. I don’t surf. Not yet. But I do love the overwhelming exposure I get to surf art and culture through him. Everything I learn about it from resin tinting to surf films directly influences my web design, and I hope to feature it more here in the next few months. Not only do I find the art of surfing inspiring but the overall attitude is too.

This evening Jim showed me a board by Tyler Warren that is just stunning. I got so intrigued that I looked up more of his work. At only 21 years of age Tyler is a fluid surfer and has a unique surf art design style.

Check out Tyler’s Work Here at his Website
Most of this info was found via Surfy Surfy a fantastic blog about surfing.

This is a follow-up to my earlier guilty confession that I love to drink overly priced yuppy water. I can not stress that this is a personal struggle I have been dealing with for a long time. It is water. Seventy Percent of the earth is water. The stuff is literally falling from the sky for free yet some marketer and designer has packaged it up and brainwashed me to turn over cold hard cash for it. Some magical force comes over me and I BUY it. And buying it isn’t enough… I almost always am hypnotized to get the most expensive kinds. Flipping genius. Damn you Fiji!

Recovering from my rant I would like to share with you that I found this water while shopping (if you can call skipping around the store making fun of things that are too expensive to buy or too old to be real candidates for president) with Carly at Balduccis. This water is marketed online as being “fashionable” and “portable”. It is said to have been

“inspired by the military canteen, is designed around the principle of portability and utilization of space while maintaining a subtle harmony of form and function. The bottle is useful and fashionable; and the taste of SEI natural spring water is pure and crisp”

Brilliant. For pete’s sake… it is just water, but it on my desk in spite of my thirst… taunting me with it’s beautiful shape and making me feel unworthy of it’s elegant design. It has been weeks since I actually bought it and still I can not bring myself to drink it… it is far too lovely to look at 9.4 fl oz = 2 dollars.

It’s not quite as limey as the Photoshop picker... but brilliant!

I found Fontifier via swissmiss the other day and thought to myself “this has to be too good to be true” when I saw it was only 9 bucks to create your own font. According to their site

Fontifier lets you use your own handwriting for the text you write on your computer. It turns a scanned sample of your handwriting into a handwriting font that you can use in your word processor or a graphics program, just like regular fonts such as Helvetica.

For 9 dollars this is a great deal, but isn’t for those trying to create a pristine font. The upload size limit is 100 dpi for your letters causing jagged edges in the final product. The more detailed your letters are the more obvious the edges become. When using the font in Illustrator it does work like a charm, but the poor quality of the scan in is amplified when going much larger than 30 points. I recomend using Fontifier when are looking for a way to give a website design a little more of a personal touch. I love it when you see people who take the time to hand draw their own fonts for the web!
At the end of the process you get to name your font. I wanted to come up with something that sounded “fonty”. I am working at a birch veneer Ikea desk… and “veneer” sounded fonty so I present “Bad Ass Veneer”. Yeah, creative juices are really flowing today.. I know.

Want to try my font? Download Bad Ass Veneer here… for free! Use it as you wish.